By Steve Metzer
Tulsa World, Okla.
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — A funding infusion for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol should put 100 to 150 new troopers on the road by 2028, but even in a best-case scenario the OHP will continue to rely on the Tulsa Police Department for help patrolling metro highways.
“We are down. We’re down in numbers across the state, and we’re definitely down in numbers of on-the-road, three-shift, 24-7 (coverage) in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metros,” Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Tipton said.
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The state budget for fiscal year 2027, unveiled last week by Gov. Kevin Stitt and leaders in the Legislature, includes $6.75 million to fund a training academy for new troopers. It won’t be enough to add 150, as Tipton requested earlier this year when he proposed an increase totaling about $24 million. But Tipton said if things fall into place and lawmakers remain committed to the cause, the Department of Public Safety should still be able to plan three “back-to-back-to-back” training academies for new troopers.
It would be the first time that’s ever happened, but Tipton said there’s no question of the need to put more troopers on the road.
“Ultimately, I think we ought to have about an additional 400 troopers,” the public safety commissioner said. “That’s what I think would be the true, realistic number for coverage the way that we believe it should be, but 150 additional is going to go a long way to help relieve a lot of strain.”
Across Oklahoma, roads and highways are busier these days than they used to be, from urban Tulsa and Oklahoma City to rural Sequoyah and Love counties. Tipton said a recent national report showed that more than 4,000 fatal road accidents occurred in the state between 2020 and 2025, most on state highways and interstates in rural areas.
The OHP — with 751 commissioned officers responsible for everything from patrolling highways, to investigating drug trafficking, to responding to bomb threats, to searching for on-the-run fugitives — has been stretched thin. Tipton said it’s not uncommon for a single trooper to be responsible for patrolling multiple counties.
A dustup occurred last year when the commissioner announced a plan to shift primary responsibilities for patrolling metro highways over to police departments in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and several suburbs. The attorney general later determined that state law wouldn’t allow for that.
“The city of Tulsa has actually worked very well with us. They’ve helped carry some of the burden of calls,” Tipton said. “But if the desire of the Legislature is that ‘we want you accomplishing all of the missions all at the same level statewide’ … we’ve got to be funded and manned in a way that we can adequately do that.”
Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R- Tuttle , said needs at the OHP are definitely on the Legislature’s radar. He noted that he has pending legislation to make retirement and other benefits more competitive with those now offered by some police departments.
But he said the funding provided for just one additional training academy this year won’t be enough to guarantee robust patrolling of metro area highways in the near future.
“One trooper academy a year is not enough to keep everything going, but it’s all we can do this year,” he said. “It kind of goes back to the same thing. There’s just not enough money to spend on everything that we need.”
But Tipton said the six-month academy will be planned to piggyback onto one that was previously funded that got underway last month.
Typically, about 30% of trainees who begin an academy don’t make it to the end, but it’s possible that the current and next academies will turn out 100 graduates. Tipton said his hope would then be for lawmakers to sustain funding for training to bring at least an additional 50 troopers on in fiscal year 2028.
“I still believe there’s a window of opportunity to make this happen over an 18-month period of time,” he said. “We’re trying to do it in a very aggressive way to beat (losses or troopers due to) attrition.”
Realistically, the OHP will still have to rely on support from the Tulsa Police Department, just as the TPD has relied on the OHP. But Tipton said his desire is for that reliance not to grow.
“Because they’re in the same situation that we are. They’re shorthanded. It’s the same with Oklahoma City PD,” he said.
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