RAISES FOR JAILERS
Staff at the Oklahoma County jail will receive $3,000-a-year raise
All Oklahoma County jail employees will receive a $3,000-a-year pay raise, according to the sheriff's office.
Employees were notified earlier this week, and additional funds will begin to appear on February paychecks.
The sheriff's office had the funding for 420 fulltime employees but only employed roughly 360. The money for the raises came out of the unused employee funding, said sheriff's office spokesman Mark Myers.
“Wear eat a point where we want to be able to make sure we are retaining, recruiting and hopefully recouping some of the people who have left the county over the past several months ,” Myers said.
“This is a good show of faith from the sheriff in reaching out and making sure that the detention staff are taken care of financially as best we can.”
Oklahoma County jail employees have a history of being paid lower than employees in other counties across the state. Sheriff P.D. Taylor has previously stated that this type of pay raise would put their salaries in line with others.
Taylor first requested the county give the office additional funds for raises, but other county officials pointed to the unused employee funding as a better alternative than an additional allocation.
"With the freed up dollars of less people being on the payroll, you have total authority to give people the raises you choose to with the dollars you have," said County Clerk David Hoot en in a December meeting ." You can spend that on raises for your employees, and we would applaud that."
There were some concerns though. If many more applications are received because of the higher salary, it would be difficult to sustainably afford a significantly higher number of employees.
“When you use t hat funding for raise sand start hiring people, how do you continue hiring people at that level ?” Myers said .“But we were conservative in our approach, and hopefully when the trust takes over, they can continue those pay raises.”
Myers said that if needed, the sheriff would approach the county for additional funding at a later date.