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Brooks County Jail in need of jailers, raising pay to attract applicants

Sheriff Benny Martinez said the county jail is down to just a handful of jailers, forcing the County to send inmates to surrounding jails.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Brooks County Sheriff's Department is dealing with a shortage of jailers at their county jail after a group of jailers recently quit to go work at a migrant processing facility in Hebbronville, Texas.

Officials said the pay was much higher, and because of that the Brooks County Jail is looking for solutions.

Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez said low pay has finally become a huge problem for the jailing facility.

"It all has to do with the pay scale, and everyone has the same issues, you know?" Martinez said. "I think it finally caught up to us."

After the jailers quit for the Hebbronville job, the Brooks County Sheriff's Office had to transfer a number of their prisoners to surrounding jails.

Brooks County Judge Eric Ramos is working to find a solution. He is proposing a raise in jailer pay from $14.50 an hour to $16.50 an hour, saying that housing county prisoners in other facilities is just too expensive to keep doing.

"Our budget this year for the jail is $503,000, and that includes medical expenses, room and board, per se, right," Ramos said. "So that’s how much it costs to run the jail. If we didn’t have a jail it would cost us, for the same number of inmates, it would cost of $750,000 to ship out the inmates to somewhere else.”

Sheriff Martinez is hoping that by raising pay he might be able to attract the jailers he needs to staff his facility.

"We should have 15, and right now we are left with, what, four?" Martinez said. "So we’re looking for about 11 or 12."

The proposed pay raise for new jailers will go before Brooks County Commissioners on Monday. Ramos feels the measure will pass, but the question remains: will the money be enough to attract the workers they need?

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