Editorial: Salaries make a difference

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

F or years the Clark County School District's police force has been significantly understaffed, a serious problem in light of the work they do, which includes confiscating guns, knives and other weapons that students bring on campuses.

As a solution, we have supported raising the salaries of rookie school police officers to make them more competitive with the salaries of rookies signing on with Metro Police and the Henderson and North Las Vegas police departments.

In November the Clark County School Board adopted that solution, approving a 17 percent increase in salary for recent graduates of the police academy, bringing the salary of new school police officers to $45,351.

The increase is working just as hoped. School District Police Chief Hector Garcia said he is receiving a record number of applications and that he is pleased with the quality of those applying. He told Las Vegas Sun reporter Emily Richmond that he now expects to have a full staff of 160 officers by summer.

We believe the 2007 Legislature and Gov. Jim Gibbons should budget enough money for a similar solution to the district's perennial teacher shortage. When the current school year began Aug. 30, the district was nearly 400 teachers short. A good part of the problem is that starting pay for Clark County teachers is about $33,000.

For Clark County to be competitive in attracting new teachers, and for it to solve the problem of losing so many experienced teachers every year to other districts, it needs to be able to offer more competitive salaries.