Trooper pay: Highway Patrol is not the place to cut corners on budget

North Carolina Highway Patrol troopers -- at least about half of them -- are suing the state for back pay they say they are owed.

The troopers say they were promised a steady salary increase structure and that over the past several years the state has chipped away at those benefits.

According to the Associated Press, some patrolmen have had to resort to food stamps to make ends meet. Others have had to move back in with their parents, family and all, or even take a second job.

Some say they took a pay cut from previous jobs to join the patrol and counted on the steady pay increases to eventually bring them out ahead.

We believe in being fiscally responsible with the taxpayers money, in keeping taxes low. But to underpay the men who keep our roads safe is simply unacceptable.

We don't ask average men to become highway patrolmen.

We don't want average men to become highway patrolmen.

We expect the best the state has to offer. The deadliest place in the world is the highway right outside your front door, and North Carolina wants only the cream of the crop to wear that patrolman's uniform and to keep that highway as safe as possible.

And you don't underpay and get the cream of the crop. It's that simple. Eventually you get something less. We can't afford to be cheap in this matter. There are places to cut a budget and places not to. This is one of the places not to.

The troopers deserve what they were promised, for their good and for the good of all the state's residents. When you are in an accident, you want to know that the man who pulls up in that silver and black car is the most competent, professional, courteous public servant you could hope for. And in North Carolina that is taken for granted, that patrolmen will always be well trained and thorough.

Let's keep it that way.

Published in Editorials on November 28, 2015 11:30 PM