Commentary: An informed, nuanced view of the end of the deputies programs in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Game Commission and Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission deputy conservation officers were both an asset to the agencies and a liability. I believe the end of the deputy programs, if not absolutely necessary, was at least due.

Probably overdue. Both agencies ended their deputy programs in August.

In the period from 1976 to 1999, as a full-time waterways conservation officer, I was responsible for more than 30 Fish & Boat Commission deputy officers. In the first decade of my career, we worked closely with the Game Commission’s Wildlife Conservation Officer Nolf and his deputies.

Many of my Fish & Boat Commission deputies assisted enforcing the Game Law with various Game Commission full-timers. At my career’s end, responsibility for ensuring required deputy training for all Northwest Region Fish & Boat Commission deputies was mine.

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Obviously, I have experience dealing with deputies. Some of these men and women made me proud. They worked often with a high level of professionalism. Four followed their dream and became full-timers.

Some were helpful and reliably available as needed. Some wanted only to be seen in uniform but accomplished little. Some were, unfortunately, embarrassments to me and the agency.

In my 25 years as a Fish & Boat Commission full-timer, I never received any serious training on being a recruiter or instructor of deputies. Yet, I was expected to spend countless hours in recruiting, evaluating, checking backgrounds, training, scheduling, organizing and managing their meager deputy reimbursements.

I doubt any full-timers for either agency received such training, either.

In my early years on the job, the deputies were thought of as extra eyes, ears and muscle to assist the full-timers. All citations and settlements were handled by full-timers only.

As rules for all state law enforcement changed, as a result of court cases and legislation, deputies were required to begin issuing citations at the site of the infraction and settlements were eliminated.

Many deputies quit as the demands of the job and their personal liability increased. They realized that the agencies were asking them for more than just being an extra body on scene.

State law enforcement training requirements are applied to all who wear a badge. To be fair to the public, other law enforcement officers who may have needed deputies in an emergency situation, and to be useful to the agencies, it was realized that deputies needed to be trained to these same high standards.

Training requirements were and are constantly on the increase. The cost in time and money needed to keep the agencies “up to snuff” constantly increases, too.

One serious question became, “Is it worth it?” I believe that as training requirements and work expectations continuously increased, they led to decreasing deputy numbers. With roster decline, training costs became more and more prohibitive per deputy when compared to the amount of work the agencies received from them.

Training requirements, court rulings, legislation, union workplace rules, individual and agency liability all appear to have been considerations that ended the era of “volunteer” deputy conservation officer programs in the Game Commission and Fish & Boat Commission.

How will the responsibilities of these agencies now be met? I don’t know in the long run.

But I think that cross-training that includes the Game Commission, Fish & Boat Commission, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and even the Pennsylvania State Police could “hold the fort” until funding is in place to bolster the agencies’ rosters of full-timers to fill their essential law enforcement needs.

(Editor’s note: Bob Steiner had a 27½-year career with the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission as a waterways conservation officer in southern Luzerne and Venango counties. He retired as assistant manager of Northwest Region Law Enforcement and was Officer of the Year for the agency in 1994. Also he was a columnist for this publication for more than a decade.)