From Staff Reports

Following reports of a 125 percent staff turnover in 2021 at the Buncombe County Detention Center, the county Board of Commissioners on April 19 heard — and unanimously approved — a request from county Sheriff Quentin Miller to increase pay for officers at the jail, including sergeants and lieutenants.

The board’s vote will result in an annual and permanent cost of $864,083. The raise reportedly will come from the Sheriff’s Office budget — and will not require an amendment to the county’s 2022 budget.

 â€œAs a point of process as I understand, the question before us is ‘do we support increasing the pay range?’, but the actual budget allocation is yours to make as you manage the budget for the year,” Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara said. 

“I’m fully supportive of making that increase to the pay range to make it as attractive as it can be to the candidates in the field.” 

Up to 150 detention officers could be impacted by proposed pay classification increases, which the board supported at an increase of $3 per hour. 

Buncombe is currently studying employee compensation and bringing recommendations to a future meeting, and that study will not include a new salary ladder for detention officers.

Prior to the vote, Miller noted that his office lost 83 detention officers and hired 64 between Jan. 1, 2021, and mid-April. 

What’s more, the sheriff said there are currently 46 vacancies. Full staffing at the jail is projected at 160 employees, according to the county.

“Buncombe County Detention Center is experiencing what I would call critical staffing conditions,” Miller told commissioners, according to a report in the Asheville Citizen Times. “A lot of this is due to ... how much we’re paying our officers.”

The ACT added that Miller said the “staff is so short right now that employees who work patrol and even criminal investigation professionals have to do shifts in the jail....

“Detention officers start at $19.14 an hour, according to a Sheriff’s Office report. That is lower than the much larger Mecklenburg County jail system, where pay starts at $25.25. It is also less than the smaller Alamance County jail at $24.47.”

Prior to the commissioner’s vote, Miller proposed two other options — both more expensive — for raises as follow:

• $5 per hour increase for a total additional cost of more than $1.07 million per year.

• $7 per hour increase for a total additional cost of more than $1.5 million per year.

Commissioner Robert Pressley, the board’s lone Republican, favored the $5 per hour option to show BCSO employees “appreciation,” the ACT noted.

“I’ve talked to a lot of the guys and girls over there,” Pressley said, discussing the detention center and his reason for wanting the $5 amount instead of the $3,” the ACT reported. “They’ve all said they didn’t get in this for money. But with the cost of living in Asheville ... they just feel like sometimes they’re not rewarded the way they need to be.”

However, when all of the other commissioners expressed approval of the $3 per hour raise, Pressley eventually relented so that the board’s vote on the raise for jail workers would be unanimous.