Our Nevada Highway Patrol has been half-staffed for many years according to a recent article posted by Ryan Matthey on 8NewsNow.com.
Per Matthey’s article, Wayne Dice, a Southern Command representative for the Nevada Police Union says that many state troopers are leaving the Nevada Highway Patrol for better paying law enforcement opportunities with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, the Clark County Sheriff’s Department, and various other agencies. The starting pay for our state troopers is one of the lowest of any law enforcement agency in the Las Vegas Valley. Dice says the Nevada State Police train cadets and then they leave for these other departments and receive an immediate 30% pay increase.
And, to add the the staffing problems, there just aren’t enough cadets coming out of the training academy to fully staff our Nevada Highway Patrol. They used to get twenty or more cadets coming out of the academy, but this year, they are down to nine remaining cadets with weeks of training still remaining. Only four of the nine are actually training to become state troopers.
It is a stress-filled six months of training to become certified as a Nevada Highway Patrol officer. After that, graduates go into field training, which is even more stressful out there on our roads, highways and freeways. Dice says they lose even more members during this field training process.
The fact that there are fewer Nevada Highway Patrol officers dealing…
