Whether true or not, to me the article stinks of bias.
from the article:
"The law dictates, for example, that the state must buy bulletproof vests for Highway Patrol officers. Not the thousands of other cops with dangerous jobs in the state, but the Highway Patrol."No kidding. Guess what, the state of Virginia buys vests for the Virginia State Police. All other departments have to buy their own. What's wrong with that?
Another law dictates that retired Highway Patrolmen get to keep their gun and badge. By legislative dictate.Wow, that's a shocker. Many other states, like Virginia, have provisions for this when an officer retires. So what?
The most interesting law gives detailed instructions on how trooper pay must be calculated.
For most state employees, the process involves waiting around to see if the governor will come up with the meager 2% or 3% pay raise that has become common. A few years ago, the Highway Patrol decided this wasn't good enough for its members.
The troopers took up a collection, said to be $40,000, and hired one of the big name lobbyists working the Legislative Plaza. That worked, as it always seems to do.
Now trooper pay is calculated and raised every year to match the Southeastern average for such jobs, which usually turns out to be much more than the average state employee gets. Teachers, for example, have worked for years to get the Southeastern average benchmark, without success. Any other group of state employees that tried to legislate a separate salary plan would get hammered, probably by the governor.Ok, maybe the teachers need to take up a collection and hire a lobbyst to have their pay recalculated. How does that make the troopers "bad"?
Sounds like a bunch of whining to me.....