CLAYTON — St. Louis County Council members say they have reached a compromise on a three-month-old request from Jail Director Doug Burris to use federal pandemic relief funds to raise pay for county corrections officers.
The compromise, expected to cost at least $3.5 million, emerged from discussions between Burris, who was hired to lead the jail in September, and the council’s four-person Justice, Health and Wellness committee.
The four committee members — Lisa Clancy, Rita Heard Days, Tim Fitch and Shalonda Webb — say they will support the proposal, which Days is expected to introduce next week. That would ensure majority approval on the seven-member council.
In April, Burris requested about $5 million out of $193 million in American Rescue Plan funds to provide pay raises for up to 300 corrections officers and fill dozens of vacancies. Burris said the jail was too shorthanded to safely supervise about 1,000 detainees after the COVID-19 pandemic halted court trials and made working conditions more challenging.
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The pay raises, at $2 per hour, would also have brought starting salaries for corrections officers from $36,847 to $40,997 to be competitive with other jails in the region, Burris said, pointing to the St. Charles County jail, which offers salaries that start at $39,467.
After Burris’ proposal was amended to remove some supervisors who had already received raises, it won the support of the Justice Services Advisory Board, a panel formed in 2019 after a series of inmate deaths at the facility.
But the request stalled for months as council members debated whether American Rescue Plan funds could be used for pay raises, and whether the county could boost hiring and retention at the jail without pay increases.
On Wednesday, council members said they were cleared to use the federal funds for their alternative proposal, which includes incentives aimed at boosting recruitment at the jail as quickly as possible, said Webb, who chairs the council Justice Health and Welfare committee.
Under the plan, corrections officers and case workers who have worked at the jail for at least one year would be eligible for a $4,100 “milestone” increase at the end of each year, starting in 2021 and lasting through 2024.
New corrections officers and case workers will be eligible for up to $2,500 in “sign-on bonuses” through two years on the job: $500 after six months and $1,000 each after the first and second years.
And current jail employees have an incentive to go out and recruit: If they refer a new hire who works at the jail for at least six months without issue, they would be receive a one-time $2,500 bonus.
Burris said there were 206 hourly corrections officers and case workers eligible for a milestone increase this year, and about 60 vacancies the jail hopes to fill.
If the jail were to provide an annual $4,100 bonus for 266 employees through 2024, it would cost at least $3.3 million. An additional $150,000 total for referral bonuses would bring the total cost of the raises to about $3.5 million.
Federal guidelines set a deadline of Dec. 31, 2024, for allocating American Rescue Plan funds. Burris said he hopes to find alternative funding for the raises past that date.
“Instead of waiting for a crisis to happen,” he said, “this is an investment to keep conditions at the jail workable,” Burris said.