By John Cheves
Lexington Herald-Leader
LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice is doing its best to deal with staffing challenges, but the loss of a traditional state pension and stressful workplace conditions have made it hard to hire and keep enough people, the agency’s head told lawmakers on Tuesday.
Juvenile Justice Commissioner Randy White testified about his agency’s staffing before the House Budget Review Subcommittee on Justice, Public Safety and the Judiciary.
On Monday, the Herald-Leader reported that nearly all of Kentucky’s eight state-run juvenile detention centers struggled through 2025 without enough staff, particularly security staff, according to monthly activity reports the facility managers submitted over the year.
Inadequate staffing worsened conditions in the centers for youths and employees alike, managers repeatedly warned in their reports. In some cases, the centers violated the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, requiring a minimum number of staff on the floor during day shifts and night shifts, managers said.
The chairwoman of the House subcommittee, Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R- Edgewood, asked White on Tuesday about his agency’s state budget request to build two new $45 million juvenile detention centers to house teen girls.
“So if we can’t staff the facilities we have now, are you confident that you’re able to staff those facilities?” Dietz asked the commissioner.
“Well, I disagree that we can’t staff the ones that we have now,” White replied. “The numbers — we have an upward trend right now in 2026.”
White said the Department of Juvenile Justice wants two new centers for girls because the legislature three years ago ordered it to return to a “regional model,” where youths in custody are housed as close as possible to their home counties.
At present, he said, there is only juvenile detention center for girls, in Boyd County, which means all girls in state custody must be driven across the length of the state to Ashland in northeastern Kentucky.
As for staffing the two new centers, he added, some women in corrections would rather work in a detention center with teen girls than with teen boys.
“I feel very confident that we can staff those types of facilities,” White said. “I believe that if we build the female facilities, we will attract those types of female employees that may be turned off by working in a male environment.”
As of Jan. 14 , White told the committee, there were 1,339 funded positions across the Department of Juvenile Justice, of which 1,157 jobs were filled, for a 14% vacancy rate. At the detention centers, he said, there were 524 funded positions, of which 450 were filled, also with a 14% vacancy rate.
A class of 30 correctional officers is in basic training and should be ready soon to report for duty, White said.
“Right now, we have momentum, and we’re filling positions,” he said.
In their monthly activity reports last year, managers of the juvenile detention centers said the agency’s official vacancy rates mask the fact that employees on medical leave, military leave and other excused absences aren’t available for work, but their jobs still are counted as “filled.”
Asked by lawmakers about his recruitment challenges, White cited the loss of Kentucky’s more generous “Tier 1” defined-benefits pensions for state workers, not available to those hired after 2008.
State workers hired since 2014 get the least generous “Tier 3” plan, a “hybrid cash-balance” plan that does not attract as many people to work for state government, he said
“The feedback I get from staff is that they just worry about what their pension — what their retirement is going to look like. They don’t have a lot of faith in an IRA-type of outcome,” White said, referring to defined-contributions individual retirement accounts.
Also, White said, working in a correctional setting can be more “stressful and controlled” than some job applicants realize. As they pass through a security check at the entrance, employees must leave behind their personal cell phones and tobacco products, he said, and once inside, they must be on alert at all times.
For these new hires, he said, “They want a more casual environment to work in. It’s really difficult to keep them interested and working.”
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