SALEM — Oregon State Police should move away from the longstanding practice of using population to dictate how many troopers the agency needs and shift to an approach that relies instead on workload, a state audit recommends.

State police also should do more to analyze their overtime use, according to the audit by the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office.

Auditors looked at whether the agency’s workforce plans address public and trooper safety.

The audit included other details:

State police spent more than $2.5 million on overtime, travel, protective gear and special training to deploy troopers and supervisors to respond to civil unrest in Portland in 2020.

The agency sent between 50 to 100 personnel to the protests, according to the audit.

It spent another $700,000 on overtime and other expenses related to historic wildfires that burned across the state that year.

The audit also makes clear that the agency’s workforce fails to reflect the demographics of Oregon.

About 90% of the workforce is white, while 71.8% of Oregonians are white, according to the audit. And while 13.9% of the state’s population is Hispanic or Latino, 4.2% of the agency’s workers are Hispanic or Latino.

Auditors recommended changes in how the agency approaches staffing, calling the current model “the least effective available” and one that fails to “account for Oregon’s changing policing environment.”

A system that analyzes troopers’ workload instead is more responsive to public safety concerns, the audit says.

“The difference between workload demand and trooper capacity may reveal a surplus, which could suggest an excess of staffing,” the report says. “Alternatively, the analysis may show there is more work than trooper time. In that case, the analysis can also help OSP estimate how many additional positions it would need to cover that deficit.”

Auditors also found that commanders fail to use a uniform statewide approach in devising schedules and do little to analyze overtime use for “potential insights.”

“Data-driven analyses would allow law enforcement agencies to assess whether overtime costs justify the work done, if an agency has the capacity to pay for overtime, and identify potential overtime abuse,” the report noted.

“It also gives an agency insight into what events commonly generate overtime, how much overtime those events require, and how frequently overtime is needed.”

In their response, state police officials said they generally agree with auditors’ recommendations and that implementing some of the recommendations will “paint a clearer picture of the staffing resources needed to provide the services expected from the department.”