Mojave County Sheriff Doug Schuster is seeking $1.5 million in additional funding during the next fiscal year to address a severe staffing shortage at the Mojave County Jail. The county board will now decide how to address that need at its next budget session.
Schuster asked his department for additional funding at a meeting of the Mojave County Board of Supervisors on Monday. Schuster said his proposal would be the most cost-effective of his four options presented to the board this week. As additional funds will be used to fill existing vacancies within the Sheriff’s Office, eight detainee positions and four lieutenant positions in his department must be frozen.
Schuster’s office budget approved last year provided $16,946,143 to county law enforcement and $10,829,301 to the Mojave County Jail. Schuster said if the same budget were allocated this year, it would not be enough to keep county jails running, and would end up resulting in higher turnover, as existing staff would be overburdened. Vacancies may increase.
The sheriff’s office budget submitted this year was about $30.45 million, $2.6 million more than last year’s budget, but Schuster said the budget does not allow for higher salaries for prison staff. The proposed budget also calls for a significant increase in overtime hours, further increasing the existing burden on county jail staff.
Another option, Schuster said, could be to completely fix the payroll shortfall within the sheriff’s office and secure payroll in parallel with competing law enforcement agencies without having to freeze personnel at all. . But that would require the sheriff’s office to increase last year’s budget by $6.1 million. This was an option Schuster did not endorse at Monday’s meeting.
A little overtime is sometimes a good thing, but there are limits. Understaffing at the Mojave County Jail has led to forced overtime for detainees, Schuster said.
“I am very proud of our existing staff,” Schuster said. “Since I first took office in 2017, I have personally witnessed a significant increase in positive community relationships, interactions, and engagement. need to understand that they live in a state of constant heightened awareness under extreme stress: they are at work, and this often extends into their personal lives. We need to decompress before we are ready to go back to, and the cycle continues.”
Also, detainees and potential recruits could be turned away from Mohave County by other law enforcement agencies offering higher wages and fewer long hours, Schuster said.
The starting salary for a Mojave County detainee is approximately $19.91 an hour. By comparison, private detention and corrections employer GEO Secure Services offers a starting salary of $26 an hour.
For Mojave County Sheriff’s Deputies, recruit salaries start at about $22.50 an hour, about $5 less than Yavapai County, about $7 less than Coconino County, and about $5 less than Lake Havasu City Police Department.
Schuster said the lack of competitive wages for law enforcement and jail staff in Mojave County increased the burden on his department and ultimately resulted in a significant number of staff vacancies. has occurred.
“Compared to local peripheral agencies, we are not paying competitive wages,” Schuster said. “That’s the bottom line.
According to a 2019 Mojave County Sheriff’s Statement, the ideal staffing for the Mojave County Jail includes approximately 196 employees. Four years ago, that number was 133. Schuster has not disclosed the exact number of staff employed at the facility as of last week, but Schuster said he now has fewer than he did in 2019.
“Workers are looking for higher paying jobs,” Schuster said this week. “The cost of living has increased significantly. We are all aware of the unprecedented rise in the cost of living – from housing to fuel to food… the list goes on and on. , law enforcement personnel have not been affected either.This is our new reality and we need to understand what it is.”
Mojave County May Shorten Long Arm of Law
And not just in Mojave County, but across the United States, recruit candidate applications are declining, Schuster said. We attribute this to a negative perception of the institution.
“It’s unsettling for me,” Schuster said on Monday. Unfortunately, there are bad apples in law enforcement – we do our best to keep them out of our recruitment process, but some of them get overlooked. .”
According to Schuster, thousands of applicants once competed for the opportunity to work for local law enforcement. Currently, the Mojave County Sheriff’s Office receives approximately five applicants each month. And Schuster says four of those applicants were disqualified because they may not have passed the mandatory background checks.
However, qualified applicants may also be using the needs of smaller communities to their advantage. By applying to smaller agencies with less competition, new officers may get law enforcement certification more easily than in big cities, Schuster said. Mojave County has served as a means to that end.
“We hired one young man who was going to be a great officer,” Schuster said. “He’s really square and he’s from Phoenix.
The Mojave County Board of Supervisors took no action Monday on Schuster’s proposal for more funding to fill the vacancy. However, board members agreed that something needed to be done.
Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter said, “I think one thing is clear: ‘We need a long-term solution. Whatever it is, we haven’t seen it yet.'”
Schuster last week announced a 10-year strategic plan drafted this year to add new positions in 2019 and combat salary squeezes within the department as it seeks to address a severe staffing shortage at the Mojave County Jail. announced it will be discontinued.
The Mojave County Board of Supervisors plans to further discuss the Sheriff’s 2024 budget later this summer.
