By PAUL HAMMEL
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — Sixteen new state troopers were sworn in and received badges at a ceremony Friday at the State Capitol.
Gov. Pete Ricketts and Attorney General Doug Peterson spoke at the ceremony, as did Col. John Bolduc, the superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol.
The addition of the new troopers still leaves the Nebraska State Patrol about 60 sworn officers short of its authorized force of 482, according to a State Patrol spokesman.
As of early July, the State Patrol had 54 vacancies, and the state troopers union was calling for wage increases to make the salary more competitive with other law enforcement agencies in Nebraska.
Troopers start at $24.57 an hour ($51,105 a year), which, as of July, was about $6 an hour less than what new police officers are paid in Lincoln and Papillion and $5 an hour less than the pay for new Omaha police officers.
Cody Thomas, a spokesman for the State Patrol, said that another class of 15 recruits starts on Jan. 3 and that the application process for the following camp opens up in about a month.
Nationally, some have labeled the recruiting of new law enforcement officers a “crisis” due to the pandemic and negative impressions of police left after the in-custody death of George Floyd in 2020.
But low pay, representatives of the state troopers have contended, is also part of the problem.
The newly sworn-in troopers have completed 22 weeks of training.
The new troopers are: Ethan Broker of Hayes Center; Dylan Cramer of Merna; Ashley Elrod and Mark Fluckey, both of Omaha; Clarissa Fitzgerald of Kearney; Steven Johnson of Waverly; Jonathan Lawrence of Ord; Lazaro Pena of Grand Island; Trysten Whitted of Gretna; Anthony Franks of Roseville, Minnesota; Logan Krein of Naperville, Illinois; Zachary Matthews of Neola, Iowa; Anthony McGlade of Clarinda, Iowa; Kailey Ortiz of Fleming, Colorado; Zachariah Sporer of Colorado Springs, Colorado ;and Justyn Stindt of Belleville, Kansas.