Results from a long-awaited study of the Bexar County Adult Detention Center indicate that it met all statutory and regulatory requirements, despite frequent complaints from staff about dangerous work conditions due to lack of personnel.
The consultant, Detain Inc., agreed that a reliance on forced overtime is negatively impacting the jail’s workforce, and proposed solutions like scheduling staff for 48-hour work weeks, either through longer shifts or six-day work weeks.
Sheriff Javier Salazar said in an interview he’s eager to start piloting the 12-hour shifts, which he said would allow new employees to have more consecutive days off, including some weekends. Employees would still receive overtime pay for working more than 40 hours, but would have more reliable schedules.
“When I when I joined law enforcement about 30 years, they told you flat out on your first day of the academy, you can kiss your weekends and holidays goodbye,” said Salazar.
“The mindset is different nowadays,” he added. “If I can tell some of my deputies that are contemplating going to another agency or even another profession, ‘Hey, hold off here, you’re fixing to get every other weekend off,’ … that might entice some people to stick around.”
Keeping employees from heading for the exits is a critical mission for officials.
The jail is currently short about 230 positions, something the consultant blamed on “attrition and an extremely challenging recruiting environment,” as well as the “elevated inmate population.”
The report noted as of May, the Bexar County jail was housing 4,365 people, roughly 85% of its total capacity. That number includes pre- and post-trial detention of inmates, as well as parole and probation violators.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office hired Detain Inc. in October 2021 to perform the study over a six-month period. Consultants interviewed jail command staff and analyzed administrative data provided by the sheriff’s office to assess issues with staffing shortages, compensation and inmate supervision.
Findings released Friday said Bexar County’s starting salary of $18.24 per hour lagged roughly 16% behind the average starting wage in five other major Texas counties. The report called for pay increases of 15% to 20% for entry-level positions to increase competitiveness — something Bexar County already plans to do.
But Salazar said the county will still likely be playing from behind when it comes to pay as others scramble to fill their own vacancies.
During the pandemic, a Texas Supreme Court order suspended jury trials and other court activities, causing a spike in pre-trial incarceration across the state. That dynamic led Harris County to use some of its pandemic relief funds to send inmates to other facilities.
“I suspect that just as we’re coming up with ways to increase pay, probably every other law enforcement agency in the area is, as well,” said Salazar. “It’s just gonna be a matter of finding other things that that might appeal to applicants,” such as more reliable scheduling.
In an interview with the San Antonio Report in July, Salazar said problems with staffing the jail are circular. While poor working conditions were due in large part to staff shortages, it’s become harder to hire because dangerous working conditions are so well-publicized.
The Bexar County Deputy Sheriff’s Association said in a statement that it has long sought to alert the public to “the severe amount of vacancies at the jail, which, as the study says, is the ‘primary cause’ of the BCSO’s chronic forced overtime and forced no relief practices.”
“No relief” shifts occur when an employee calls out and there are no backups available. The employee currently in the position is held over until relief is found, often for the entire next shift.
Speaking at a recent Commissioners Court meeting, Ronald Tooke, union president, said his members were exhausted from mandatory overtime and haven’t been allowed to use vacation days due to severe staffing shortages.
The county’s fiscal year ends Friday, meaning any unused paid time off will be forfeited.
Salazar conceded that the county will likely continue to rely heavily on overtime for the foreseeable future.
The study noted that “most factors affecting the arrest, detention and length of stay of accused and convicted offenders are mostly beyond the control of Bexar County officials.”
While state officials have pointed blame at prosecutors for not working hard enough to clear case backlogs from the pandemic, Salazar took aim instead at the state, which he said uses jails to lock up the mentally ill. He said Friday that roughly 200 of the inmates in the county jail belong in state prisons, but no one has come to transfer them.
“The DA is a stakeholder I can work, with the judges to some extent, are stakeholders I can work with,” Salazar said.
“The State of Texas is not going to work with me on these things,” he added. “They’ve shown time and time again that their number one priority is not building mental health beds or coming to pick up their inmates in a timely fashion.”
The county is also funding a study of the jail, though its results have not yet been released. It did so at the request of former commissioner Trish DeBerry, who sparred regularly with Salazar about the use of overtime to staff the jail.
“I didn’t want somebody who, quite frankly out of malice, was gonna hire somebody to come in and write what she wanted them to write in this consultants’ report,” Salazar said of DeBerry, who is now the Republican candidate for county judge. “I said, ‘No. … This is my jail and I will hire a consultant. So we paid for one out of our asset forfeiture funds.'”
Salazar said previews he’s seen of the county’s report show the findings roughly align with the study conducted by Detain Inc.
He added that neither study calls for building a new jail, an idea DeBerry has made central to her campaign for county judge.
