KTVN: “The Sheriff says that communication with Governor’s Office has also not been the greatest.”
While deaths on Nevada’s roads continue to rise, Joe Lombardo has refused to answer questions or come up with a serious plan to address state police staffing shortages. Reporting from KLAS found that under Lombardo, statewide vacancy rates for state police have increased again. The department reported an estimated 58% vacancy rate in the Las Vegas area with only three or four officers patrolling the Valley at night, leaving communities less safe. During Lombardo’s tenure, it was announced that state police would not have the resources to patrol Reno between 2-5 a.m. In 2023, Nevada reported more deaths on the road than the national average while state troopers patrolling in the Las Vegas Valley have decreased 45% since 2015.
Despite the Nevada Police Union president citing low take-home pay relative to competing agencies as the primary reason for shortages, in 2023 Lombardo voted against the union’s collective bargaining agreement that included critical pay increases for officers. After calling state trooper vacancies “a crisis” on the campaign trail in 2022, Lombardo stiffed officers again by ordering that they and other state employees who were working under collective bargaining agreements wouldn’t be receiving longevity pay under AB522 – payments of up to $1,027. In 2023, Lombardo vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have helped boost state police take-home pay by cutting half their share of retirement contributions.
Now, Lombardo has declined to include additional pay raises for state police in his proposed budget even as they face a decrease in their take-home pay as their contributions to the Public Employees’ Retirement System are set to increase.
Read below to see Joe Lombardo dodging questions about Nevada’s state police shortage:
- “8 News Now has repeatedly asked the department and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo for on-camera interviews. The governor has rescheduled several times since an initial request last fall and his office did not respond to a repeated request regarding an interview.” [KLAS, 2/28/25]
- “We reached out to […] the Governor’s Office for additional comment from Friday’s statements and they have not gotten back to us.” [KTVN, 03/03/25]
To see how Lombardo’s state police shortage is impacting Nevada, you can click below:
Las Vegas: HERE, Reno: HERE, Rural Communities: HERE
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