By
The Associated Press
MESA - Arizona most likely won't meet its own annual deadline to check the state's 11,000 registered sex offenders because of a staffing shortage, Department of Public Safety officials said.
Under Megan's Law, DPS keeps a list of sex offenders who are considered a moderate or high risk. Residents are notified when such an offender moves nearby.
However, the staffing shortage is keeping the state from spending the time needed to track absconders, sex offenders who move and fail to notify authorities as required by law, the East Valley Tribune reported.
DPS officials say the agency needs more money if it is to comply with the law, but help is unlikely this year.
An early budget prepared by the governor doesn't have any new money for the sex offender notification effort, said DPS Lt. Rick Knight, the department's legislative liaison. Instead, DPS will get $26.5 million to hire 116 new officers in the next two years. The department is 23 percent below desired staffing in the Phoenix area.
The decision upsets two lawmakers who monitor sex offender notification efforts.
"It's more important to know where these sex offenders are than to catch five or 50 people who are speeding 60 miles per hour on the freeway instead of doing 55," state Sen. Peter Rios, D-Dudleyville, told the Tribune.
Another member of the Community Notification Guidelines Committee said DPS isn't to blame. State Rep. John Loredo, D-Phoenix, said the governor and fellow lawmakers must place a greater priority on tracking sex offenders.
The department will ask for more money next year, Knight said.
When the six-unit team of sex offender trackers formed in 1999, Arizona's sex offender registry had files that hadn't been updated in decades.
Val Biebrich, the community notification coordinator for DPS, said he started his job thinking about half the addresses for sex offenders were wrong. After 19 months, he discovered the number was closer to 70 percent.
DPS contacts offenders or their probation officers once a year - or every 15 months - under current staffing levels.
Still, about 100 of Arizona's 11,000 sex offenders have absconded. Biebrich said the unit hasn't looked for those lawbreakers as aggressively as he would like because of the staff shortage.
However, DPS has done more than the law requires in some tracking efforts by listing certain types of sex offenders on the Internet and tracking those offenders every six months. The law requires a check once a year.
