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Officers statewide received about $30 million in overtime pay for the DUI crackdowns funded by the state Office of Traffic Safety, according to the study.
Modesto police received $73,000 in state grants to fund checkpoints this year and $37,000 for saturation patrols, in which officers drive around looking for impaired drivers.
About $3,000 is needed to fund a Modesto police checkpoint. Blom said the department plans to conduct about 20 checkpoints this year.
The local police agencies say they can't afford to pull officers from regular patrol duty to operate the checkpoints. They don't want to reduce patrol staffing, so they're forced to have officers earning overtime at the checkpoints.
In some cases, officers assigned to DUI units can work at the checkpoints earning their base salary, but local police officials say that's a rarity.
Blom said Modesto police has a minimum of eight officers at each checkpoint but prefers to have 10 to 12 officers.
When drunken drivers are arrested, officers have to step away to start paperwork and take the suspect to jail.
"You got a lot of things going on at once, and you have to keep the line moving," Blom said. "We're dealing with a whole bunch of cars moving through the checkpoint."
According to the study, an average of 18 officers worked at each checkpoint statewide. The federal traffic safety agency advises that police can set up checkpoints with as few as six officers.
"I don't see how you can do a checkpoint with six officers," said Vierra of the Ceres Police Department, which has 10 to 13 officers working at each checkpoint.
Ceres police received an $80,000 state grant this year for anti-DUI operations, and $27,000 from the grant will be used for checkpoints.
Ceres police will conduct four checkpoints this year and spend about $3,500 to $5,000 on each checkpoint.
Riverbank police services received $150,000 in state grants for DUI enforcement operations, including sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols.
Kimbrough said Riverbank police has 18 checkpoints scheduled this year, and it takes $3,200 to $3,400 to fund a checkpoint.
Sometimes, Riverbank police will decide not to tow a vehicle from an unlicensed driver. At a recent checkpoint, Kimbrough said, officers came across a man driving with a license that had expired six days earlier.
The driver admitted he had forgotten about the expiration date, so Kimbrough said they had the man's wife pick up the vehicle instead of towing it.
"It's not a money venture," Kimbrough said. "It's about educating the public."
Bee staff writer Rosalio Ahumada can be reached at rahumada@modbee.com or 578-2394.
