By C1 Staff
EL PASO COUNTY, Texas — Commissioner Vince Perez wants El Paso County to get on the financing ball, after a new report shows that the county is the most expensive in the state in terms of incarceration.
El Paso Inc. reports that the commissioner alleges that the county is both losing money on the hundreds of federal inmates it houses every day and is overcompensating detention officers.
According to the new findings, the $71.2-million budget for the operation of the 1,000-bed Downtown detention center and the 1,464-bed complex on East Montana is 22.7 percent of the county’s $313 million budget. This makes El Paso County’s incarceration budget bigger than any other major county in Texas, says Perez.
And he points to the salaries and benefits of the county’s 650 detention officers.
The salary schedule shows detention officers start at $37,323 a year and will, without a promotion, top out at $60,789 in 11 years.
“We can look at other places, but nobody’s making 60 grand after 11 years as a detention guard, not even close,” Perez said. “But that $60,000 is nowhere near the real cost because it doesn’t include benefits or retirement or health care.”
With one promotion, a detention officer becomes a floor control officer or corporal and would be making $70,373 after 11 years. That’s under the current contract between the county and the El Paso County Sheriff Officers Association, a union.
Under that contract, the starting salary for a deputy sheriff, who must serve as a detention officer for at least a year before becoming a deputy, is $43,590. Pay for that rank tops out after 11 years at $70,996.
Sheriff Richard Wiles disagrees with Perez’s calculations regarding the federal prisoners that the county contracts to hold for trial or sentencing. He also says that the Commissioners Court, not him, is responsible for contract negotiations on financial issues with the union, and he doesn’t know whether the detention officers are the best compensated in Texas.
“I think it’s important that you offer a good salary and benefits to attract quality people and retain them because it saves the county money in the long run,” he did say on the topic of officers’ salaries.
He also calls Perez’s numbers on the cost of housing federal inmates “too simplistic.”
The county is paid $70 a day for federal prisoners, and when compared with the cost of keeping them in the Downtown jail ($100/day), it’s easy to see it as a loss, he said.
“What the feds pay includes fixed costs, part of my salary, administration and purchasing.
“The HR report found that if we eliminated every federal prisoner, we would have to make up $10 to $11 million a year. I say it is not true that federal payments are not covering costs.”
If the inmates were removed from the county’s jails, they would have to be housed miles away in private facilities in New Mexico, which would create a larger headache for the entire criminal justice system.
“Why would you want to do that, reduce our workforce and send those jobs outside our city? It’s a benefit to us and a win-win for everyone.”
Wiles added that jail costs should come down after the implementation of 12-hour days for detention officers.
“At the jail annex, our overtime costs normally run between $40,000 and $60,000 every two weeks,” he said. “We’re now down to $6,700 for the last two weeks.”
Last year the county spent $3.4 million in overtime at the detention centers, and Wiles says he believes they’ll bring it down to $1 million this year.
“Initially people were resistant to the change, but it seems now that they like it.”