Jail shortstaffed by 42%; county OKs raises to try to attract and keep deputies
Facing a crisis in jail staffing, Sedgwick County on Wednesday approved spending $2.1 million to raise pay for the guards.
The County Commission approved the raises for detention deputies at the request of Sheriff Jeff Easter, who’s in charge of the facility that holds about 1,200 inmates a day.
The action will increase starting pay at the jail from $15.95 an hour to $18.95. More experienced detention deputies and corporals will get comparable raises, but ranks of sergeant and above won’t, Easter said.
Easter told commissioners that the jail is short-staffed by 42 percent, with 98 positions open on a staffing chart of 233.
The combination of low pay and frequent mandatory overtime to cover the necessary shifts has strained morale and fueled attrition, Easter said.
The shortage of jail deputies is causing problems throughout the organization, he said.
Deputies from the law enforcement arm of the department are having to fill in at the jail, pulling four-hour shifts in detention every seven to 10 days, Easter said.
Also, the COVID-19 pandemic has cramped efforts to recruit new jail deputies because of the cancellation of community job fairs and restricted access to high-school students.
Last year, “we lost 110 detention deputies and hired 67,” Easter said.
The $2.1 million to fund employee raises will come from projected budget savings due to the short staffing at the jail, said county Chief Financial Officer Lindsay Poe Rousseau.
The only opposition came from Commissioner Jim Howell — who ultimately voted yes — but expressed concerns that approving raises for one class of employees could increase disgruntlement in other departments.
“I have grave concerns about how this is going to affect the organization,” he said.
He said the county is working on a pay study across the organization and that should be the process for addressing detention deputy pay.
Howell proposed giving the detention deputies a bonus of $3 an hour extra until the county has a chance to adjust all employees’ pay. That motion died for lack of a second and Easter said it probably wouldn’t solve the morale and attrition problem anyway.
“People are leery about the bonuses because they could end, just like freezing wages,” he said.
Howell later asked for a week’s delay to give him more time to study the proposal, which he said came to commissioners only two days ago.
That also died for lack of a second.
This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 12:03 PM.
