To our founders, you are the foundation.  To our members, you are the stability. 
To our children, you are our future

Troopers march into the Legislature

Facing a twenty million plus bailout of the state medical plan the 1999 legislature abolished the committee on benefits and created a new health care health care system with new standards, a new Governor appointed board and the opt out provision allowing groups of three hundred to leave the state system provided they met certain criteria and didn’t impact the system more than five percent. Passing the new health care bill was no easy undertaking, especially the opt out provision. The opt out provision required hours of testimony with every conceivable scenario both for and against presented.

After several months the bill passed both houses and was signed into law. Although the opt out provision was a huge victory for the NHPA and other coalition members the opt out provision would prove to be an up hill battle to enact.
Due to the lacking salaries and the alarming loss of NHP troopers to other Nevada police agencies NHP Chief Michael Hood in support of the NHPA sponsored pay parity bill lead 54 uniformed Nevada State Troopers into the Senate Finance Committee. Hood came to the table armed with factual testimony in support of pay parity. The trucking industry representative Daryl Cappro, Granite Construction and other industry officials also appeared and testified in favor of the parity bill. The issue was and remains simple. It cost more to replace and retrain new troopers than to retain current experienced officers.

The reason given why the bill failed is some lawmakers feel they can not bind future legislatures to fund the provisions of pay parity.
The true reason the bill failed was due to opposition from SNEA stating the bill was unfair to other state employees and collective bargaining was the only answer to wages and benefits, knowing their collective bargaining bill didn’t stand a chance of passing. What happened in 1999 was an historic event because never in the history NHP had a standing Chief put his job on the line in support of his troopers more than Mike Hood. What Hood did took courage and will be remembered as the day the troopers marched on the legislature.
2000: Joe Neal petition/ Union Shopping

After the 1999 Legislative session it became apparent that once again something had to be done to increase the salaries of the troopers and to re-establish the NHPA with organized labor. Senator Joe Neal a long time friend and supporter of the NHPA was in the process of forcing Nevada gaming to pay a higher rate of tax on gross gaming revenues through a state wide petition, citing Nevada Gaming pays the lowest rate compared to other states. Several issues were included in the petition including funding for education. Senator Neal also included a pay parity issue for the Nevada Highway Patrol. The NHPA Board of Directors agreed to participate and contributed to have the petitions printed. In addition several troopers on their own time started collecting signatures. Due to the lack of volunteers the petition failed to reach the number of registered voters to put the petition on the ballot. However due largely to the petition the troopers would be rewarded in the 2001 legislative session.

The other issue facing the NHPA after the 1999 session was health care and the absence of organized labor to assist the NHPA in it’s efforts to pass NHPA sponsored bills. It was further determined if the NHPA could affiliate with a union that could provide both health care and the other services that some unions could provide then everything would be provided under one house. The one thing the NHPA had going in it’s favor was organized labor still embraced the NHPA, because it was SEIU who dumped on state employees and the NHPA had established itself as an effective force in the legislative process. Further the NHPA never lost sight of the importance of organized labor and the AFL-CIO and stood strongly supporting labor related issues. The AFL-CIO looked at the NHPA as an abused child looking for a new home.