COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The state Department of Public Safety said Monday it could get an income boost by charging universities and groups that use the state highway patrol to direct traffic during special events as much as $24 per hour per trooper.

During budget vetoes last month, Gov. Mark Sanford gave DPS the authority to charge for traffic control that troopers provide at events such as college football games and parades.

Troopers currently work such events at no charge. A change in policy could come as early as this fall, when dozens of troopers direct traffic during college football games.

Sanford talked about the potential change during a budget hearing Monday with Public Safety officials. The governor is gathering input from state agencies for his executive budget.

DPS is slated to receive $70.8 million in state funding during fiscal year 2004, a decline of nearly 27 percent from 2001. The Highway Patrol, a division of DPS, employs 152 fewer state troopers now than three years ago; the agency as a whole has 376 fewer workers.

Allowing DPS to charge for special events would mean more troopers on the highways for ordinary duties and would give the agency some extra money during tight budget times, said agency director Boykin Rose.

"The cost of providing these services is significant," Rose said. "In the past, we have been unable to recoup that."

Such traffic control costs the patrol about $1 million a year in manpower, DPS officials have said.

The agency is working out how much money it would charge for special events and which groups would be charged and would get the final OK from Sanford, Rose said.

The agency could charge $24 per hour per trooper, with an additional $8.25 charged if a vehicle is used, said Highway Patrol commander Col. Russell Roark. Some charity groups likely would not be charged for traffic control at their events, he said.

The patrol hopes to use extra money to help maintain its fleet and pay for gas, Roark said.

Money wasn't the only topic at the budget hearing.

Sanford asked Rose whether the Highway Patrol had a quota system.

A former state trooper has sued the patrol, claiming troopers who wrote a certain number of tickets were rewarded.

"The patrol has no quotas," Rose said. "What we emphasize is quality over quantity."

A trooper who writes few tickets but invests time in other activities, such as giving warnings and investigating accidents or drunken and reckless driving incidents, is not going to be reprimanded, Rose said.

One who writes no tickets or gives no warnings in a single day is "a lazy ... nonproductive" trooper, he said.

South Carolina troopers wrote 517,579 tickets in 2002, according to DPS figures.