{"id":29463,"date":"2021-09-30T12:39:01","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T16:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=29463"},"modified":"2023-09-24T16:03:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T20:03:51","slug":"georgia-is-losing-state-troopers-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=29463","title":{"rendered":"Georgia is losing State Troopers. Here’s why"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thanks to the COVID pandemic, civil unrest and violent crime wave, Georgia\u2019s Department of Public Safety (DPS) has suffered a 60% reduction in the number of state trooper applications over the last 18 months.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a state Senate study committee meeting Thursday, DPS chief of staff Josh Lamb told senators the 745 troopers on the state agency\u2019s current payroll and 223 motor-carrier officers are the lowest in his 24 years of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2020, the department lost 87 troopers either due to retirement, resignation or termination,\u201d Lamb said. \u201cAnd now, retention has become as big an issue as recruitment. We\u2019re having a tough time getting them into the front door and an equally tough time keeping them from leaving through the back door.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The committee was meeting to hear from different state departments on their current number of employees and the overall health of the state\u2019s retirement program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamb was asked by state Sen. Elena Parent<\/a>, D-Atlanta, how the department\u2019s pay scale compares to other jurisdictions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve raised the starting trooper\u2019s salary from $36,832 to $47,350, and that\u2019s still not enough,\u201d Lamb said. \u201cSandy Springs just revamped their pay scale to a starting salary of $52,641, and for the Atlanta<\/a> Police Department, for prior-sworn officers, that pay scale begins at $54,440.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamb also said his department has shortened its trooper school for prior-sworn officers from 34 weeks to 13 weeks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, DPS has seen an overall turnover rate of 22% over the last two to three years. The troopers lost in 2020 alone represented a $7.8 million DPS investment, Lamb said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n[mailerlite_form form_id=9]\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to the COVID pandemic, civil unrest and violent crime wave, Georgia\u2019s Department of Public Safety (DPS) has suffered a 60% reduction in the number of state trooper applications over the last 18 months.   During a state Senate study committee meeting Thursday, DPS chief of staff Josh Lamb told senators the 745 troopers on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8704,8474],"class_list":["post-29463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-georgia-state-patrol","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}