Staffing Improves At Correctional Facilities

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Staffing levels at Milwaukee County’s two correctional institutions are improving.

Officials from the Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office (MCSO), which oversees the jail, and the Community Reintegration Center (CRC) both reported this month that staffing is improving at their respective facilities.

Both the jail and the CRC have, in recent years, struggled with critically low staffing levels. Both institutions have relied on forced overtime to maintain daily operations, and both are expected to exceed their overtime budgets in 2023 as a result.

Jail Commander Joshua Briggs recently told the Milwaukee County Board’s Committee on Finance that the jail is approximately 74% staffed up. This is a marked improvement from a July assessment which found the jail was only 65% staffed. In 2022, the jail was reporting staffing levels between 50% and 60%. The CRC has also improved staffing, and officials recently reported that the facility was 83% staffed.

Briggs came before the board seeking an extension of an agreement with Racine County that allows the MCSO to transfer inmates to the Racine County Jail. Historically, the jail has transferred overflow to the CRC, but the COVID-19 pandemic and staffing shortages reduced the amount of transfers the CRC could safely accept. The jail, which serves about 15,000 people brought in and out every year, regularly exceeds the court-mandated population limit of 960 inmates.

With staffing improving, the MCSO has not had to transfer anyone to Racine recently. “The CRC has been accepting the jail’s overflow population, keeping our facility below its maximum capacity,” Briggs said.

But the MCSO wants to keep the agreement with Racine in place as a contingency, “in the unlikely event the CRC is unable to accept our MCJ overflow,” Briggs told supervisors.

The agency still has nearly $250,000 left in an allocated fund for transfers, the MCSO reported. Racine County charges a daily fee of $70 for each person it accepts from Milwaukee County.

The Board’s Committee on Finance approved the contract extension with four votes in favor and one vote against. Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez voted against the contract. Supervisors Shawn Rolland and Sequanna Taylor were excused from the meeting at the time of the vote.

In 2022, the county budget included funding for $3 an hour in premium pay, as the facilities were relying heavily on overtime. The 2024 budget, recently passed by the Milwaukee County Board, increases the starting wage for corrections officers to $30 an hour. Policymakers hope the pay increase will stabilize staffing at the jail and CRC. Additionally, policymakers passed the higher wage hoping to retain employees that might otherwise be enticed to leave the county for employment with the state Department of Corrections, which is increasing its starting wages to $33 an hour beginning in 2024.