Julie Morgas Baca, manager of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, praised efforts that could increase retention for corrections officers.
The county recently approved a pay increase for a series of jobs at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the hopes that doing so could help resolve staffing issues.
Most correction officers at the county jail will get a 13% raise, KRQE reported. Those officers include those with two years of service through lieutenants with several years of service. The increases will be noticeable during the Aug. 5 pay period.
“The increase is well deserved," Baca told KRQE July 12. "Increased retention and successful recruitment efforts will result in more boots on the ground and less demand for overtime.”
Union leaders also commented on the raise.
“Hopefully the things we’ve done in the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) will help us to get some new people in the door and relieve our officers from the overtime and the workloads that they’ve been under,” said MDC Officers Union President, Council 18, Local 2499, Joseph Trujeque. “Hopefully this will also get us some more staff so we can get the inmates out of their cells more often.”
The county will also offer a shift differential pay package, which will include pay per hour for employees working various weekend, graveyard, or swing shifts, KRQE reported. The Whalls Group, an outside firm, will search for a permanent replacement prior to MDC Chief, Greg Richardson, who resigned June 30. Currently, Roseanne Otero Gonzales, former MDC director of Administrative Services, is serving as interim chief of MDC.