In good news, your chances of getting a speeding ticket out on the high lonesome plains are down 12%—that’s how short South Dakota is of Highway Patrollers:
The South Dakota Highway Patrol can’t find enough people to hire as troopers.
That’s the message the Legislature’s Government Operations and Audit Committee heard on Wednesday.
The Highway Patrol is an arm of the South Dakota Department of Public Safety. State Public Safety Secretary Bob Perry said the patrol is down 25 troopers.
That’s 12% of the patrol’s 210 positions [Bob Mercer, “SD Highway Patrol Having Trouble Hiring,” KELO-TV, 2025.09.24].
SDHP is having trouble finding its men and women because they aren’t paying enough to recruit highly qualified troopers for rural areas:
…the patrol doesn’t really have trouble filling the Sioux Falls positions. “I think it’s more of a factor that we can’t fill rural positions,” Perry said.
…Perry said that “within the state” the patrol offers competitive pay but has been losing ground.
A current help-wanted ad showed a starting hourly wage of $30.46 per hour, plus additional $2.00 per hour night shift differential and $2.00 per hour weekend differential [Mercer, 2025.09.24].
Sure, Lemmon and Kadoka may not offer many jobs paying over $30 an hour. But the folks with the high-level skills to work in state law enforcement can get offers at least that good in lots of places that aren’t over a hundred miles from Big Macs and reliable signal.