For NHP, fighting crime doesn’t pay

Jace Radke

Friday, March 2, 2001 | 1:32 a.m.

Lenny Taylor was planning a long career in the Nevada Highway Patrol, but after four years of enforcing the law on area freeways, Taylor now wears a North Las Vegas badge.

"When I went into the academy four years ago, I was set on being in the highway patrol forever, but I had to make the switch," Taylor said last week as he prepared for his first day of work in North Las Vegas.

"It's not that I didn't like being a part of the highway patrol, because I did, but the difference in pay made it hard to stay."

Taylor is among the latest in a flood of Las Vegas-based troopers leaving the Nevada Highway Patrol to test the law-enforcement job market.

The highway patrol is the second-largest law enforcement agency in the state, behind only the Metropolitan Police Department, but its troopers, and supervisors make less money than other Southern Nevada police departments.

The difference in pay ranges from $9,000 to $12,000 for a starting trooper compared to what starting officers at North Las Vegas, Henderson and Metro make. The wave of defections has left only 49 troopers to patrol Clark County, but state standards call for 96, according to Richard Kirkland, Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety director.

Competing woes

"The issue for us is how to compete with agencies that can offer so much more money," Kirkland said. "It's a very big concern, and a problem that is going to require eating an elephant a nibble at a time. The state is not capable of just going in and financially fixing this because it's not just the highway patrol, but the whole state employee program."

Gov. Kenny Guinn's budget proposal calls for a 4 percent raise for state employees, including the highway patrol, in 2001 and 2002.

Guinn did not respond to several calls seeking comment.

The budget plan also provides a 5 percent raise for highway patrol employees who have reached the maximum salary, meaning that some could receive as much as a 9 percent raise in July.

While Kirkland believes the pay increases are a good start, they are not enough. The highway patrol's salaries will still be thousands of dollars less than what other agencies are paying.

At a starting base of $29,378 a year, the highway patrol is still well below the starting salary of $38,148 that Metro offers. When the 4 percent raise goes into effect in July, a trooper making the minimum salary will see a bump of about $1,175.

The difference in pay becomes even more pronounced for supervisors, with a maximum salary for a highway patrol sergeant of $49,673, which is less than the starting salaries for Metro, North Las Vegas and Henderson sergeants.

Regionally, the Nevada Highway Patrol ranks behind its Arizona counterpart, but pays more than the Utah Highway Patrol. Salaries for officers of the Arizona Department of Public Safety start at about $5,000 more a year than the Silver State's, and Utah troopers start at a base of about $3,000 less.

Better prospects

With better prospects in the troopers' back yard and in Arizona, it's easy to see why there are dwindling numbers of troopers in Clark County.

Troopers based in Las Vegas cover an area that is roughly bordered by Mount Charleston, Hoover Dam, the California state line and Apex. And the crunch of fewer bodies behind the wheels of patrol cars is felt daily, Trooper Alan Davidson said.

"The most we usually have on patrol at a given time may be eight, when we should probably have upward of 14 or 15 troopers," Davidson said. "We try to staff more on the weekends because that's when we generally have more traffic. When you look at a midweek graveyard shift, there may only be four troopers on."

On Feb. 20 Taylor and four other troopers made the move to North Las Vegas, and at least 10 more highway patrol employees are seeking jobs with the Henderson Police.

"I have two young children and that became a consideration for me," Taylor said. "Beyond that you realize that you don't put your life on the line any less with the highway patrol than you do with one of the the other agencies."

The loss of younger troopers such as Taylor is making it difficult to develop a more experienced core of troopers in Clark County, Kirkland said.

"We have constant turnover with our troopers that have been on two, three, four and five years," Kirkland said. "Like anything else, it takes a few years to gain the maturity and experience levels you like to see, and we're having a hard time keeping them (troopers) when they get to that point."

Trooper-retention rates in Washoe County and Nevada's rural areas are not a major problem because the difference in salaries with other law enforcement agencies isn't as pronounced as it is in Clark County.

"There are just so many more choices in the southern part of the state," Kirkland said. "It's requiring an understaffed group to push harder and run faster."

Besides low pay, the highway patrol also is handcuffed by a retirement plan that pulls money off the top of paychecks to a tune of 14.2 percent. That percentage can equal a few thousand dollars each year from a trooper's check. North Las Vegas, Henderson and Metro Police have noncontributing retirement plans.

Allowed to transfer

Another factor hurting the highway patrol is that Metro and North Las Vegas allow experienced officers to transfer in without going through an entire academy.

Metro has a modified academy to train officers with three or more years of experience to become Metro officers in 13 weeks instead of the normal 20 weeks. North Las Vegas has an even easier transition, allowing lateral transferees who have been in law enforcement for two of the last three years to skip an academy and go right to field training.

"We're losing a lot of people because we've basically become the training center for other agencies," Kirkland said. "It's a great deal for the other agencies. They just do a background check, find out that we hired a good person, and they have a trained officer ready to go.

"It's not a wise use of taxpayer money. It's costing about $25,000 to train that trooper, and then they go to work at another agency."

Henderson does not allow lateral transfers and still requires recruits to spend 22 weeks at the Southern Nevada Law Enforcement Academy, which also trains North Las Vegas officers.

Six-month academy

Nevada Highway Patrol cadets go through a six-month academy in Carson City before being assigned somewhere in the state. The highway patrol usually runs two academies a year that turn out about 20 total new troopers.

Despite the new graduates, the Las Vegas area is always down at least 30 to 40 troopers, forcing the highway patrol to take a second look at applicants who may not have been considered in the past.

"We get all the leftovers," Davidson said, "people with no experience and people who have been let go by other agencies. We are going back and hiring guys that didn't cut it with us before.

"One guy quit to do landscaping, but he's back because he couldn't get the days off he wanted as a landscaper. That's sad. I guess the highway patrol has just become a steppingstone."

The highway patrol also has lowered its standards when it comes to drugs in an effort to widen the applicant pool. In the past an applicant that had used a hallucinogen would not be accepted. That's changed to a person who has not taken a hallucinogen in the last five years can now apply.

"We're all competing for the same types of applicants, and finding people who want to go into law enforcement right now is tough nationwide," Kirkland said.

Agencies such as North Las Vegas are now looking more aggressively in other states for personnel, North Las Vegas Police spokesman Lt. Art Redcay said.

"There just aren't any more fish in this pond," Redcay said. "We've started going out of state to California and other places to get applicants."

Henderson and Metro also search for applicants out of state, with both agencies visiting New York and other Eastern cities and Western states such as California.

Infrequent trips

The highway patrol has made infrequent trips into California to recruit, and it is now starting a recruiting committee to look at other areas.

Kirkland doesn't deny that city police have more responsibilities than the troopers and that their pay should reflect that. But the gap is too wide right now.

"The highway patrol catches its fair share of felons, but the primary function is making the freeways safe," Kirkland said. "It's different than law enforcement in a city, but we have to be more competitive."

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