Highway Patrol ends contract with NC State after promotions probe
The State Highway Patrol has severed its three-year contract with NC State University to help run its promotions test after learning a graduate student had disclosed results of the test before the patrol could publish them.
The patrol confirmed this week that it had ended the contract after one year and paid $195,000, but patrol officials did not provide an explanation. The contract would have paid the university $600,000 after three years.
The university had been helping with trooper hiring practices since as far back as the mid-1990s, and records show the patrol has had a series of contracts with NC State to help with promotions dating back to 2012.
Mark Wilson, the NC State psychology professor who led the university’s efforts to design and administer the test, said the patrol provided him with no explanation when it ended the contract.
In a letter to the school dated Aug. 8, patrol commander Col. Glenn McNeill only reported the termination.
“There wasn’t any real discussion, and nobody conveyed anything to me,” Wilson said.
Internal investigation
At that time, the patrol was in the midst of a three-month internal investigation that ultimately found graduate student Unber Ahmad had given out results in advance. But there was no cheating involved, and the test results are now being used to promote troopers to higher ranks.
The patrol did not report the contract termination when it announced its findings in September.
Sgt. Michael Baker said in an email message this week that the patrol is reviewing promotional processes elsewhere to see what would be a good fit. It has moved those tasks from the Training Academy to the Professional Standards Section.
“Our exploration of other processes nationwide is ongoing, in hopes of offering our members the very best in promotional testing procedures,” Baker said. “We are researching several state police/highway patrol testing practices and hope to have an independent process in place very soon.”
Misconduct cases
The university’s seven-year run of contracts with the patrol followed a decade in which the patrol was dogged with accusations of preferential treatment and a rash of misconduct cases that often involved sex. In one case, a trooper was sentenced to prison in 2008 for pulling over three Hispanic women and threatening them with deportation if they didn’t let him touch, kiss or fondle them.
The misbehavior was so frequent then that the state hired Kroll, a nationally recognized consulting firm, to come up with recommendations for hiring, supervising and training troopers. One of the recommendations, which wasn’t followed, was to change state law so that the governor had the option to appoint a leader from outside the patrol.
One of the projects Ahmad worked on involved interviewing troopers about their job duties. It was part of a plan to improve a form the patrol uses to get feedback on staff development, according to records the patrol provided to the N&O in a public records request.
Some troopers were unsure why an NC State graduate student was reaching out to them, according to emails between Ahmad and patrol Capt. Aaron Back of the patrol’s Personnel/Promotion/Performance Unit. They contacted Back to find out why.
“They have a clue after I tell them,” Back wrote to Ahmad, “but you have to remember most have no trust in the promotion system or the performance process.”
This story was originally published January 11, 2020 at 5:58 AM with the headline "Highway Patrol ends contract with NC State after promotions probe."