LSP Master Trooper Dean Coates, who appeared before the Louisiana State Police Commission on Thursday, October 10, 2019 to request an investigation of LSP having failed to uniformly implement longevity pay increases, sued LSP the following day, October 11, 2019, seeking to be awarded his longetivity pay retroactively to October 12, 2016.
Louisiana State Police (LSP) Master Trooper Dean Coates sued LSP on Friday, October 11, 2019. The preceding lawsuit is self-explanatory but, in a nutshell, it asserts haphazard implementation of a 3 percent “longevity pay increase” which was awarded only to “chosen commissioned troopers” when Coates asserts the pay raise is applicable to all troopers, the majority of whom Coates asserts in his litigation have not been awarded the pay increases. The following table illustrates the timeline of events outlined in the petition:
| Date | Event Transpiring |
|---|---|
| October 9, 2014 | New pay grid approved by LSPC. |
| February 5, 2015 | New pay grid signed into law. |
| November 12, 2015 | Jason Starnes proposes amendment stipulating 3% longevity raise not merit-based but instead is applicable for all commissioned troopers. LSPC approves pay grid with Starnes' amendment included. |
| October 12, 2016 | Pay grade with amendment signed into law by Gov. Edwards. |
| June 19, 2017 | LSPC Executive Director Jason Hannaman confirms 10/12/16 as applicable date and indicates Coates entitled to longevity 3% increase prospectively from 10/12/16 forward. |
| September 9, 2017 | Coates, for the first time, receives 3% longevity pay increase. |
| March, 2018 | Coates transferred from Troop A road detail to Internal Affairs. Salary increase thus allegedly due Coates but he has not received that salary increase. |
| July 8, 2019; July 11, 2019; July 15, 2019; August 28, 2019; September 20, 2019; October 3, 2019 | Coates makes repeated demands for payment (see highlighted paragraph below). |
| September 20, 2019 | Coates asks LSPC to investigate implementation of longevity pay increases across the system. |
| October 10, 2019 | LSPC votes to have Executive Director Hannaman investigate the longevity pay matter (see video below). |
Paragraph 10 is the critical allegation contained within the litigation, so we put it front and center at this time with some highlighted critical words within the paragraph:
One day prior to suing LSP, on Thursday, October 10, 2019, Coates succeeded in obtaining an “investigation” of the alleged selectivity of the pay increases by the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC). We now present Coates’ appeal for just such an investigation before the LSPC in its entirety:
Coates and his attorney, W. Brett Conrad, Jr. (an associate of the Craft law firm) state the case for an investigation into the longevity pay increases matter to be conducted.
We’re not even going to bother with linking all of the features in the last week regarding negative LSP publicity. Instead, we’ll just point out that the stench of nepotism and cronyism, when combined with an apparent increasing likelihood that criminal acts transpired entailing the ouster of LSPC Commissioner Calvin Braxton, are now manifesting the core nature of LSP which should leave any objective LSP observer with one unmistakable impression.
That impression is that the entity is infested with an insidious cancer that has inflicted severe damage to both its actual health and its perceived health. As a result, nothing short of a new statute permitting an outsider willing to serve as Colonel and overhaul the entire agency’s upper brass, combined with the total loss of classified job protection, are going to have a shot at curing this badly-sickened state agency!
We have heard specifics entailing paragraph 10 highlighted above; however, in fairness to LSPC Executive Director Jason Hannaman, we are going to refrain from publishing those specifics at this time and will instead anxiously await his investigative report, which we commit to provide to our subscribers. It should make for a very interesting read!
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