By C1 Staff
TULSA, Okla. — Staff at the Tulsa County Jail are putting in overtime, and it’s racking up charges for the county.
KJRH reports that overtime was budgeted for this year at $45,000 – instead, they’ve gone well over that, totaling in at $705,000.
“You’re going to see that number and that number is going to continue to rise,” said Maj. Shannon Clark, with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office.
The jail would be ideally staffed with 435 detention officers, but at the moment only has 292.
“We have to ask people to stay over, people to work their days off, just to have enough people to cover,” said Clark.
The jail has issues maintaining staff due to two reasons: low pay and high stress. Even with a recent pay raise, bringing the officers’ starting salaries from $21,800 to $30,000, the overtime problem hasn’t gone away.
The chairman of the authority that funds the jail says they would consider additional raises for detention officers if money was available, but for now the authority is more focused on staying within budget.
The jail is currently expanding, adding an additional 300 beds that will require more detention officers.
A new sales tax introduced to fund the expansion will pay the officers’ salaries for 15 years, after which the jail will be responsible for the cost.