i guess rural virginia needs the money
It's a combination of problems here, Cuomo diverts a huge amount of upstate SP officers down to NYC, I have seen pics of Trooper cars with the "C" on the lic plate in NYC, C & D is our local troops (I'm just inside C but right on the boarder of C & D) so he's also sending our cars down there.
Over the years I've talked to numerous officers when I've seen them in the village and requested they shoot radar on our road from time to time. A couple years ago I saw new young Trooper, gave him the same run down and he told me, "Until the judges come down harder on speeders it's a waste of our time to write speeding tickets", not his job to dictate punishment but that was his attitude/excuse.
The lack of Troopers with their attitude leaves the Sheriff Dept, they are under funded, under staffed with a big area to cover. About ten years ago the one Sheriff officer who lived here in our village moved away and now we have no Sheriff officer from our village. When he was here he knew everyone and everyone knew him, if he saw you or heard of you doing something wrong while off duty he'd catch up to you in the next couple days when on duty and let you know to knock it off. That was a big advantage we lost, he was a good man, it was sad to see him go.