Fee increase may be best option for hiring troopers

Though no one wants to pay more for a vehicle title, a proposal to raise the fee from $10 to $17.50 may be the best way to help the Kansas Highway Patrol hire more troopers. More than a third of the counties in the state have no trooper serving them, in part because the pay package isn’t competitive. Nearly another third of the counties are served by only one officer. Because the state already faces a budget shortfall, it likely doesn’t have the existing funds to raise trooper salaries, so a fee increase may be the only option. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, state prisons and state hospitals also face staffing shortages. – Phillip Brownlee

This story was originally published January 13, 2016 at 6:05 PM.