State Police Superintendent Seeks Raise For Civilian Workers

{West Virginia}...State Police Superintendent Col. Jay Smithers  appeared before the Joint Finance Committee Wednesday in an effort to urge state lawmakers to approve a pay increase package for the civilian workers within the State Police. Smithers told lawmakers State Police forensic analysts are the lowest paid in the nation. He says, during the last five years, 24 of the 41 lab personnel have left the State Police for other jobs, and, in the area of dispatching, the starting salary is $20,800. He says dispatchers that work for cities and counties make at least $5,000 more a year. Smithers says 79 State Police telecommunicators have been hired in the last five years but only 36 remain on the job today. Smithers also told lawmakers that 47 percent of the civilian workers were given the minimum amount, approximately $500, of an across the board pay raise that state workers received beginning in July. The State Police has already handed in its proposed budget for next fiscal year to acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin. The proposal includes a change in pay for civilian workers.