The Mississippi Highway Patrol (MHP) has always had, and will continue to have a rich, meaningful and proud tradition. In the grueling patrol school that all Mississippi State Troopers endure, we are instilled with the motto: Courtesy, Service and Safety.

During those long weeks, we have pounded into our brains that the order of service in our lives should be the following: to serve our God, family, country and state (in that order) with honor and integrity. We all drove away from graduations with heads held high, dressed and pressed in, literally, the sharpest uniform in the country with great pride and humility in our hearts. We were ready to hit the road and put into practice all that we had learned through our own blood, sweat and tears.

In each of our minds, we had just put on the last uniform we will ever wear, since we just were indoctrinated into the greatest law enforcement agency in the state, very possibly the nation. We chose to take on this unbelievably important and necessary burden and could hardly wait to start. We were more than willing to serve the citizens of the state of Mississippi and those who travel through our great state.

These things are imbedded so deeply in our hearts and minds that the will to see the tasks and responsibilities through to fruition never leaves. Then, over time, sadly, reality sets in. We are not seen and treated as the men/women just described by the government of the great state we serve. At the very least, we are not compensated or tasked as such. All of the following eventually dawns on us and negatively affects each of us in various and sundry ways.

We realize that our salaries with respect to years of service, when compared to other state’s troopers, and even when compared to other law enforcement agencies within our own state, is poor, embarrassing and not respectable.

We eventually realize that we not only need to but must secure a second job in order to provide for our families. That second job often pays more per hour, with comparable benefits, than the job for which we have a passion, being a MS State Trooper!

Remember the order of service: Family comes before our job, even with the oath.

We see our classmates leave MHP and take other jobs, law enforcement jobs in some cases, because of higher salaries, greater benefits, better chance of advancement, etc.

We realize that the equipment with which we risk our very lives is sub-par and antiquated. We realize that we will have to drive our current patrol vehicle until the wheels practically fall off (greater than 150,000 hard-driven miles) before we are issued another because of the vehicle budget given.

We realize that the bullet-proof vest that was issued to us and that we wear daily to insure that we will return home to our families safely after each shift, is past its shelf life and that we will “just have to make do” until we are approved funds to purchase new ones.

We realize that we were eligible and entitled to a “step raise” and rank 22 months prior that we did not receive because the budget would not allow. To make matters worse, when we do receive the rank and pay, we are not back-paid for the months in which we should have been receiving more. This is demoralizing, considering that the guaranteed rank and pay of our step raises every four years is often the only thing troopers have to look forward to, and the only thing that compensates for such a low starting salary. Promotion opportunities are limited in our agency, so our step raises are often the only chances we have for advancement. They are essential to morale and part of what keeps us here.

We realize that troopers in surrounding states with comparable job and rank, receive pay that far exceeds ours. We realize that troopers in surrounding states are allowed to complement their salaries with overtime because their legislatures finally found simple ways to show their appreciation for their troopers’ tireless and extremely important work. To put it simply, we “wake up and smell the coffee” that we have been slighted in many ways.

I know not of a trooper who has not gone well beyond the scope of his duties to assist a member of the general public, much less a member of the Mississippi legislature. We take money out of our own pockets to bring fuel to stranded motorists in the early hours of morning; we give courtesy transports to stranded motorists when all our duty calls for is to have our dispatch get a wrecker en route to assist; we lend our patrol coat to an accident victim instead of watching them shiver. We will continue to do the job for which we were called, injustice corrected or not, but should we have to?

Should victims of motor vehicles accidents have to wait two hours for a trooper to arrive at the scene because — due to a shortage of manpower and not mismanagement of troopers — he was covering four counties? There have been shifts in the very recent past when one master sergeant and two troopers were covering an entire district of nine or ten counties. This is absolutely ludicrous! Either pay us for doing the work of two people or fund a patrol school each year for the next few years!

Almost all of this letter was written in respect to injustices and mismanagement of the MHP by our own state government, but I ask this question: Who really gets the “short end of the stick” if the status quo remains with respect to the Mississippi State Legislature’s decisions about the annual budget for funding the “needs” not the “wants” of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol?”
Is it not the general public who suffers? Yes, troopers and their families are hurting, but the public ultimately pays the price. With all due respect, we are doing “more with less” than we ever have in our entire history. Now is the time to right the wrongs.

As Mississippi State Troopers we will continue to go above and beyond the call of duty, even if nothing changes, but ask yourselves this: Does quality and performance not improve as the conditions and benefits do?

Our state needs us, and we need your support.

With all due respect and sincerity,
Trooper First Class Guyton Collins, a proud Mississippi State Trooper