LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Billboards seen by thousands of drivers, officers and Nevada troopers across the Las Vegas Valley advertise a $122,500 starting salary: work in California for California Highway Patrol.
FOX5 first noticed the ads on electronic billboards near Allegiant Stadium and the Resort Corridor. CHP gave FOX5 an example of an ad that is circulated on billboards, nationwide.
The advertising push comes as Nevada State Police faces its own shortage of troopers: Southern Nevada’s region has 50 troopers, with 70 open positions– or a 58% vacancy rate. CHP faces its own shortage with 750 positions that need to be filled.
Regional and national recruitment efforts among law enforcement are nothing new. CHP tells FOX5, it recruits across the West Coast and only selects the best candidates — though the most applicants come from Nevada and Arizona. Candidates have come as far away as New York, a spokesperson said.
Depending on the position and the regional office’s discretion, officers can work in California yet continue to live in Nevada, CHP said. A top-step officer can make up to $152,500 a year.
The ads are lucrative to residents across Nevada, struggling with a 5.8% unemployment rate — the highest in the nation — and a cost-of-living that has not kept up with wages.
NSP has been working on its own recruitment campaign. In contrast, in a Department of Public Safety report to lawmakers, NSP pay starts at $63,000 and goes up to $93,000 (as a lateral police officer).
In 2023, FOX5 reported on the last legislative pay increase for NSP.
Dan Gordon, the president of the Nevada Police Union, is aware of the ads and has gotten calls from officers and troopers about the ads popping up on billboards across Southern Nevada. He is fine with them: his counterparts in California and Arizona have notified them of the campaigns prior to their launch, he said.
Gordon’s message to troopers? He understands their reasons, if they choose to move.
“I’ll never, ever tell anybody not to do what’s best for themselves and for their family…It makes it very difficult to be a single-income household. We have troopers up here in the North: they’re married, and they live with another married couple,” Gordon said, noting that the annual raises for many newer troopers aren’t very competitive or keeping up with the cost-of-living.
“The simple fix is–we’ve got to be more competitive when it comes to salaries and take-home pay,” Gordon said. It’s a problem that needs to be resolved in order to get our numbers to where we need to be,” he said.
“This generation–they have a lot more information available to them. They know that at the end of every two weeks, they know what a paycheck is going to look like when they work for another agency like Metro,” he said, noting that many other Nevada agencies have more lucrative starting salaries or competitive options like retirement packages.
When asked about a legislative proposal for raises, a DPS spokesperson referred FOX5 to Gordon; Gordon said he is at the legislature every day and lawmakers are open to a bill, but movement generally occurs in the latter part of the 2025 legislative session.
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