Sheriff’s department comes up with solutions to address overtime pay

A view of Cameron County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday afternoon on Aug. 3, 2022. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

The Cameron County Sheriff’s Department has come up with solutions on how to address overtime hours in the department along with the cost of feeding inmates in the county jails.

The sheriff’s department has come under scrutiny by Cameron County Commissioners Court following revelations that $1 million was being paid out in overtime pay, and that $1.9 million was spent on feeding the inmates.

The $1.9 million cost to feed inmates is in part due to when COVID-19 started to affect the county about two years ago. Before that, trustees in the jails would help distribute meals to the inmates. However, when the pandemic hit, trustees were no longer allowed to distribute meals.

Officials said the company providing the meals to the inmates had to increase personnel to distribute the meals and added to the costs being billed to the county.

Commissioners Court learned of the high numbers as it continues to find a way to balance its 2022-2023 fiscal year budget as it faces a $5 million deficit.

The deficit has been attributed to a drop in revenue from the courts, rise in gas costs, insurance costs, and the loss of funding from non-county inmates who had been housed in the county jail.

Commander Andre Delgado said the working hours for jailers manning the downtown detention centers would be at four days on and three days off, which would bring them with 48 hours and no overtime.

Delgado said lieutenants and sergeants within the jail system have agreed to go down to 8.5 hours that way the overtime hours will decrease.

“You probably won’t see any drastic change maybe until a month or a month and a half from now. I talked it over with and they understand it justifies the means and that is what we are going to work on starting Friday,” Delgado said.

“So, in essence there will be 46 jailers of our current staff that will not have overtime,” said Major Frank Mason.

Delgado said the sheriff’s department has also come up with an incentive care package from the commissary that will be provided to the trustees to entice them to assist working in the kitchen, as commissioners court recommended.

“We appreciate you coming up with some solutions and some options,” County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. told the members of the sheriff’s department.

Although other department heads requested raises for their employees and additional employees to assist in the operations of their departments, it is unclear if the county will be able to provide them with their requests.

Commissioners Court will continue budget discussions on Tuesday.