By Tanner Cole
The Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa — The Des Moines County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Wednesday to add four positions to the roster at the county jail.
The move, which comes in the wake of an assault on jail staff by inmates, will add three full-time correctional officers and a part-time correctional officer. The full-time positions start at $35,681 and are eligible for health benefits, while the part-timer will make $11 per hour.
Supervisors didn’t discuss those dollar figures at the meeting, but were in agreement the jail needs more people. The three men had sheets on their table tallying the jail’s population every month since November 2015. Based on the figures, there has been a clear increase in inmates.
“Before I went in and pulled these stats from the records, I was thinking, well, maybe this is a trend and it’ll go down,” said supervisor Jim Cary. “But after looking at this, we can’t afford to wait.”
Supervisor Tom Broeker said that past county safety reports noted previous incidents at the jail, though nothing has been as shocking as the assault Dec 10. by two convicted murderers, Earl Booth-Harris and Jorge Sanders-Galvez, and convicted armed robber Bobby Morris. The additional staff have been needed for some time, he argued.
“We knew things have gotten a little harder there.”
Still, it’s clear the attack put things in motion.
“Things were brought to a head a couple weeks ago with the attack at the jail,” Broeker said.
Supervisors also gave Sheriff Mike Johnstone the go-ahead to have a consultant come and price options for a jail expansion. Johnstone is in talks with James Estes of the Police Facility Design Group, who Johnstone said is willing to examine the jail for free.
The PFDG is the same group the city of Burlington hired to convert the U.S. Bank building downtown into a new police department.
©2017 The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa)