LONGVIEW, Texas — It’s an issue that’s being faced across the state - a lack of jailers. But jails have to be staffed, meaning many guards have to work overtime.
As a result, Gregg County's sheriff has moved hundreds of thousands of dollars around his budget to cover his employees' paychecks.
"Every sheriff’s office in the state of Texas is struggling and mainly in the jails," said Gregg County Chief Deputy Craig Harrington.
So, Gregg County Sheriff Maxey Cerliano told the commissioners court on Monday his jailers are racking up so much overtime because it's so hard to hire anyone in law enforcement.
"The biggest struggle that we have is going to be inside the jail division. We got struggles on all division, but the jail division is our largest struggle," Harrington said.
The state requires that jails have a minimum of one jailer for every 48 inmates. And with 40 open jailer positions in Gregg County, Harrington said many jailers are stepping up to cover the gaps. He said there's no other choice.
"We’ve got some very dedicated personnel," Harrington said. "We have mandatory overtime that all personnel are mandated to come in an on-call basis. But if officers want to sign up for more than that, they can and that helps us all out."
The sheriff's office has moved almost $700,000 from one account to another to make sure everyone gets paid what they've earned.
"All that money is, is just salary lag. It’s money that we already had in our budget, it’s for a lack of positions that we got filed so what we did more or less is just move that money from one account to another account to cover for overtime," Harrington said.
Though Harrington said they have workers who love their jobs, "at the end of the day, they don’t want to be doing that for years in the future."
Which is why the Gregg County Sheriff’s Office is trying to fill those jailer spots, just like many other counties across the state.
Cerliano told the commissioners court that he first started struggling to fill open positions early in the pandemic. But while the pandemic has improved, staffing hasn't recovered.