Highway Patrol Pay Raises Backfires

Planned pay raises for the highway patrol backfire when the patrol asks for even more. A proposed plan giving highway patrol troopers pay increases turns out not to be enough for the patrol…which asks the legislature for another half-million dollars. But for Senators who represent prison guards and many other state employees, that’s excessive. In fact, senators such as Moniteau County’s Larry Rohrbach thinks the original increases are a stretch. He says there’s no reason for hefty pay raises for the highway patrol, where few people ever resign for better-paying jobs, while refusing to give people such as prison guards significantly higher salaries to keep them or attract new ones. When one Senator threatened to reduce the original pay increases recommended for the patrol, the proposal to add even more money to the budget for raises was withdrawn, although no additional increases have been suggested for the prison guards. The Senate budget chairman says there’s no money for that.