TOPEKA — The Kansas Highway Patrol said Wednesday the state agency continued to struggle with recruitment and retention of qualified law enforcement officers despite the 30% raise in base salary for newer troopers implemented last year by the Legislature and Gov. Laura Kelly.
Capt. Mitch Clark told state senators the KHP was competing with police and sheriff departments in urban centers in Kansas and law enforcement agencies in neighboring states.
Nationally, he said, the applicant pool was diminished, training classes where smaller, and retention of young troopers and people eligible for retirement persisted. The economy, COVID-19, the “great resignation” and negative news coverage contributed to staffing woes, he said.
“We are all fishing out of the same pond that’s drying up, that’s more shallow,” Clark said. “This is a national crisis.”
In 2022, the state raised the wage for troopers with less than three years of experience from $21.13 per hour to $27.61 per hour — an adjustment the captain said was a “huge” benefit to the agency.
Clark told the Senate Transportation Committee the KHP had 52 trooper vacancies based on budget authorization for employment of 478 troopers. The 10.9% shortage left KHP with 426 troopers in uniform to serve the state’s public safety interests. In the past decade, under leadership of three different KHP superintendents, the agency reported averages of 430 to 456 uniformed personnel.
The KHP graduated 15 people from training programs in 2022...
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