Public Safety Commissioner Robert Flowers isn't responding to pileups on the interstate. He's making the 600-mile round-trip commute between his Taylorsville office and his Santa Clara home.

About once a week, Flowers makes the five-hour trek to spend long weekends with his wife and children in southern Utah. Usually, he returns to the Wasatch Front on Mondays. In the process, Flowers put 35,000 miles on three successive state cars and spent $3,500 in taxpayer-funded gas last year. A Salt Lake Tribune review of state vehicle use showed Flowers spent more on gas than any other state executive and has the third-highest mileage driven.

The lengthy commute is approved by Flowers' bosses - former and current governors alike. They have argued his experience and knowledge balance out the cost to taxpayers and inconvenience of having the state's law enforcement boss on the road often two days a week.

Still, Public Safety veterans - and members of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s transition team - have questioned whether the drive is the best use of Flowers' time and taxpayers' money.

Acknowledging the commissioner is in charge of law enforcement for the whole state and that cell phones and laptops can make geographical distances smaller, Weber State University law enforcement professor Robert Wadman said the commissioner's commute is still questionable in the wake of terrorist attacks and natural disasters that can wipe out wireless and conventional communication.

"That person should be located in the place that his services could be utilized most effectively," said Wadman, former Aurora, Ill., and Omaha, Neb., police chief and deputy Utah Public Safety commissioner. "If there's even a question about it, it should be adjusted."

A longtime Public Safety employee, Flowers left the department in 1997 to take a post as St. George police chief. Four years later, then-Gov. Mike Leavitt appointed him to oversee the state's preparations for the 2002 Winter Games. Flowers decided to keep his home in Santa Clara and rent an apartment in Salt Lake County.

For four years, the arrangement went on unquestioned. But members of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s transition team balked when they learned the top Public Safety official's permanent home is 300 miles from the state's population center. In transition reports released earlier this month, the five-member team - including Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller and Salt Lake County Councilman Michael Jensen - urged Huntsman to require Flowers to live along the Wasatch Front.

"Flowers will need to show his commitment to the Department by relocating his home to the Wasatch Front, at least within 45 minutes of the department," the team wrote. "His current residence in St. George is a concern, especially if air traffic and ground mobility were restricted by a major event. Flowers must be closer to the center of events."

The governor said he "strongly recommended" and expects Flowers to move north. But there is no set deadline for the move. Huntsman plans to review the policy implications of Flowers' long commute at the end of the year.

Living close to a police agency's population center "is required of a first-response officer. It isn't of a policy officer. And he is the public safety leader for the entire state," the governor said this week. "When he's on the road, he's on duty. And he's here during the week."

While he has looked at houses along the Wasatch Front, Flowers says he is reluctant to uproot his young stepchildren from their elementary school and pull his wife away from her job. He insists he can do his "policy-oriented" job, directing the state's emergency responders from a distance, or in the case of this year's floods and fires, up close. Besides, he says, he just gets in the way and makes state police nervous at command centers.

Between September 2004 and September 2005, Flowers drove back and forth at least 34 times - first in a Ford Crown Victoria, next a Chevy Suburban and currently in a Dodge Durango. He also flies to meetings in Southern Utah on the state plane "about once a month." In a typical week last November, Flowers fueled up in Beaver, about 200 miles south of Salt Lake City, at 9:30 a.m. on a Monday. Two days later, he gassed up his car in Kearns. Presumably on his way back home Friday afternoon, Flowers fueled again in Beaver.

Flowers says taxpayers get "150 percent of my best effort" regardless of where he is. "The state doesn't end at the Wasatch Front. I'm all over the state all the time. I've actually had to leave Salt Lake and respond to [Southern Utah]," Flowers said. "It has not been a problem thus far. If it ever became a problem, I would change my residence immediately."

Other state executives have logged equal miles - some more. Corrections Director Scott Carver drives every day from his South Ogden home to the State Prison in Draper, putting 30,300 miles on his state-issued Chevy Impala. Corrections Institutional Operations Director Belle Brough drives 80 miles from her home in Levan, logging slightly more miles than Flowers on her state-owned Impala. And former Board of Pardons Chair Mike Sibbett put 36,000 miles on his taxpayer-financed Ford Explorer - in the same time period - the most among those surveyed in a review of public records.

All, like Flowers, claim "statewide" jobs. Sibbett presided over parole hearings across the state. And Brough and Carver say their high mileage is a result of crisscrossing Utah to visit state prisons and county jails. Carver said he makes a point of leaving for work between 6 and 7 a.m. to put in a full day, and the records of his fuel fill-ups appear to back that up.

"It's whatever the job takes. We have to manage the agency wherever the work is occurring. That's part of the job," Carver said. "Where we live shouldn't be a requirement of the job."

Former Public Safety Commissioner John T. Nielsen believes Flowers can do his job from a distance. "The important thing is that the commissioner be in a position to adequately supervise the department and respond to the governor," Nielsen said. "With technology, he can certainly do it in the fashion that he's been doing it."

Some state lawmakers are more skeptical of Flowers' commute.

"If I lived in Southern Utah, I don't think I'd want a job in Salt Lake County. You'd spend all your time on the road," said Holladay Democratic Rep. Pat Jones, a member of the Legislature's Law Enforcement Committee. "It does seem a little inefficient. I'd like to know his rationale."

Another committee member, Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, says the decision to cut off Flowers' commute ultimately rests with Huntsman. But lawmakers control the purse strings. He says lawmakers should review the state's car policy to make sure it is fair to all state executives.

"It is a statewide job. The question is, 'Where does he need to be to perform that?' " Harper said. "As part of our responsibility over the budget and policy, we should look over that area to make sure the budget's being spent properly."

Coming Monday

Utahns also foot bill for officials' personal cars.