By C1 Staff
TULSA COUNTY, Okla. – Last fiscal year, the overtime budget at the Tulsa County Jail was over by $650,000.
This was due to staffing and retainment issues, since detention officers with the jail are the least paid in surrounding counties and stress levels were high.
So to combat that, KJRH reports, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office made a plan: they created an ad campaign to recruit officers and also got a pay increase approved. So far, the efforts are working.
“With the increased application pool that we’ve had with the increased hiring that we’ve done, I’ve been able to eliminate the mandatory overtime from 24 hours to 12 hours and then as we continue to get more staff I’m going to try and reduce that even further,” said Major Shannon Clark.
“We’re trying to hire more people. We’re trying to retain more people. We’ve shortened down our training program so we can get the people into the facility and working much quicker.”