State Cuts 42 Jobs From Motor Carrier Division

INDIANAPOLIS -- The state has eliminated 42 inspectors from the Indiana State Police Motor Carrier Division, half the division's workforce.

The division is responsible for inspecting large trucks and school buses. The cost-cutting move was made because of the state's financial trouble, 6News' Rick Hightower reported.

"Every agency is having to take steps to shore up their budgets," said Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten. "We're going to do everything in our power to reassign state police personnel to fill in where those positions have been reduced."

Forty-one motor carrier inspectors kept their jobs. The last day of work for those who were let go is Dec. 31.

The civilian force, in which employees don't carry weapons and are strictly limited to enforcement of motor carrier laws, has been decimated within the last two decades, said Larry Hood, of Logansport, who learned he will be laid off.

"When I first hired on, there were 160 motor carriers," Hood said. "It's not a good thing, but what do you do? The stat'es in tough times. I just hope there's a job back home for me."

The layoffs were emotional for workers who invested many years in their jobs, such as Darlene Hauck.

"I've been here 20 years," Hauck said. "They chose 42 of us to get it and 42 to stay."

"This is not what anybody wanted to see happen," Bursten said. "There is a lot of thought and feeling for those people."