A spike in the employment rate has improved after the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) was forced to declare a state of emergency last summer over staffing.

“Just since the early summer we were at a 46% staff capacity and we’re up to 54%,” Larry Gallegos, Communications specialist for Bernalillo County, told KRQE. “That’s an 8% jump in less than half a year. That’s fantastic. If we can keep up with that kind of growth, will be great.”

The staffing of corrections officers and other staff reached a critical point in June when there were more vacancies than positions filled. Gallegos noted that with staff officers out sick during the COVID-19 pandemic and others choosing to leave through retirement or their own accord created a situation in which there were not enough employees to properly secure the inmates.

“It’s hard to keep [a] full staff across the board, not just at MDC,” Gallegos told KRQE. “It’s a tough job and people can burn out if they’re not careful.”

Several factors helped improve staff numbers after the state of emergency was declared. The County Commission voted for 13% pay raises for most corrections officers plus up to $10,000 in sign-on bonuses based on experience.

“It’s kept some of the retentions of some of our older guards,” Gallegos said. “All of a sudden they saw a bump in pay and said hey, ‘I’ll stay on a little longer.'”

Also, a job fair was held at the jail and 21 new corrections officers were recruited there.

“If they could do that every time they had a job fair, it will help our numbers tremendously,” Gallegos said.

But there are plenty of positions that still need to be filled.

“Will we ever get to 100%?,” Gallegos said. “I don’t know a jail out there who is, but we’re going to sure do our best to get as close to full capacity on correctional officers as we can.”