In advance of Presenting Pennsylvania’s budget for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, Governor Tom Corbett announced Tuesday it will include plans to fund three new State Police classes. By the end of FY 2014, 290 new cadets will be trained. This, said State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan, comes at a critical time.
“The responsibilities of the Pennsylvania State Police continue to increase and because of retirements and some spaces for classes we didn’t have, our manpower is about 500 below what our compliment is supposed to be,” he said.
In addition to training 290 cadets, a fourth class will be offered. That class will train some 90 civilian workers for the state police. With workers in short supply, Noonan said troopers often end up doing dispatch work. The civilian employees will do that, allowing more troopers to work in the field.
Corbett wouldn’t go into detail about other facets of the state budget proposal but said it will include education and transportation plans. But, he said law enforcement and public safety is the top priority.
“If we don’t have safe schools and safe homes and safe businesses and safe roads we can’t really do the work we need to do to create a strong economy, to properly education our children, we can’t provide help for the disabled, we can’t do the work that we need to do to protect the land and air without the people feeling safe in their communities,” said Corbett.
The classes in the next fiscal year will be held in August and November of 2013 and April of 2014. A third class for the current fiscal year will be offered in February, and 90 cadets from that will be on the force by the end of July. Commissioner Noonan said funding the new troopers isn’t a concern as many of them will be taking the place of retirees, and the influx is not expected to be a large budgetary burden on the State Police.
