The Iowa Department of Public Safety is announcing plans to shut down another district office to save money. Spokesperson Courtney Greene says the district headquarters in Ottumwa will close in mid-April.
“It will save roughly $25,000 in facility costs and an additional $100,000 a year by not filling vacant positions,” Greene told Radio Iowa. “The good thing is it will not affect the number of troopers patrolling Iowa’s highways.” This is the second district office the Iowa State Patrol is consolidating. The office in Cherokee will close next Friday.
That decision was announced December 18. Greene says the timing was right to close the headquarters in Ottumwa because the office secretary is retiring and the lieutenant there can fill a vacant position at the district office in Osceola. In addition, the building in Ottumwa is in need of repair.
“The organization really had outgrown that location and a bypass was built around it so now it’s on a dead end road making it difficult for the public to get there. So, there were a number of reasons,” Greene said. Troopers who currently report to the office in Ottumwa will continue to patrol their assigned counties, but their home office will move to Osceola or Mount Pleasant.
Greene says the headquarters in Osceola will absorb Marion, Monroe and Appanoose counties while the Mount Pleasant office will begin serving Keokuk, Mahaska, Wapello and Davis counties. Once the headquarters are closed in Cherokee and Ottumwa, Iowa’s remaining State Patrol offices will be located in Des Moines, Spencer, Denison, Council Bluffs, Mason City, Fort Dodge, Osceola, Oelwein, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Stockton and Mount Pleasant.