Nevada public safety chief outlines budget

Associated Press Writer

Lagging salaries, tight hiring restrictions and limited training facilities are hamstringing recruitment efforts at the Nevada Department of Public Safety, legislators were told Wednesday.

"It's not one hand tied behind my back," public safety chief George Togliatti said. "It's two hands and a foot."

Testifying before a joint Senate-Assembly budget committee, Togliatti said his agency struggles to fill highway patrol, investigative, capitol police and administrative positions in part because pay and benefits don't measure up to comparable positions in local governments.

The governor's proposed pay increases for certain law enforcement employees over two years, in addition to basic cost-of-living increases, won't make up the difference, he said.

"We'll still be considerably behind," he said.

Togliatti said state restrictions also hindered hiring. State law prohibits the department from hiring officers who receive benefits from other agencies. The department cannot pay to transplant officers from other states. And officers from out of state with experience have to go through the state's basic training academy known as POST.

"If someone was protecting President Bush right now, and for some reason wanted to come to Nevada, I couldn't offer him a job protecting our governor unless he went through POST as a rookie," Togliatti said.

The department's primary training academy is in Carson City, which presents a hurdle for recruitment in Las Vegas.

DPS has gone fishing for new hires in rural Nevada and military bases in Southern California, Togliatti said. Legislators watched a recruitment video - which promised candidates "a little danger" and a "healthy retirement package" - used in effort.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, noted the video lacked depictions of women and minority officers out in the field.

Togliatti, a former FBI agent and hotel-casino security executive who joined the department last year, said DPS did "too little, too late" to attract women and minorities.

White men make up 73 percent of highway patrol, investigative and capitol officers. Minorities make up 16 percent of all DPS employees, and about 40 percent of the employees are women.

"You find yourself playing catch up with all the other agencies gobbling up all the good candidates," he said.