(1) The commissioner is authorized to employ not exceeding six hundred fifty (650) persons as a Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol within the Department of Public Safety. All positions and salaries heretofore authorized and set by statute under the commissioner shall after April 20, 1981, be made part of the State Personnel System and shall be governed by the laws, rules and regulations thereof.

(2) The commissioner shall grant an additional One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) per month for special flying assignments to patrol officers who are licensed commercial pilots.

(3) It is the direction of the Legislature that all Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nonexempt sworn officers of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol who are working one hundred seventy-one (171) hours in a twenty-eight-day work cycle be compensated based on the annual salary established by the State Personnel Board for a one-hundred-sixty-hour per month schedule divided by two thousand eighty-seven and one hundred forty-three one thousandths (2,087.143), for an hourly rate, to be multiplied by two thousand two hundred twenty-three (2,223) or one hundred seventy-one (171) hours in a twenty-eight-day work cycle for a new annual salary. All hours worked over one hundred seventy-one (171) hours in a twenty-eight-day schedule shall be governed by the FLSA or other special compensation plan. All realignments after July 1, 2010, shall be calculated using this formula. This subsection shall be known as the “David R. Huggins Act.”