Texas law enforcement agencies hope lawmakers will solve state worker shortages

The Texas Department of Public Safety, the Juvenile Justice Department and the Department of Criminal Justice are seeking more than $75 million combined for employee salary adjustments and other worker recruitment and retention initiatives to help fill major vacancies within their ranks.

Leaders from those departments made their requests to lawmakers at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing Feb. 27.

The requested salary adjustments would add to the proposed $1.8 billion included in the draft 2024-25 state budget for an across-the-board pay raise for state employees.

Agency leaders testified that low pay hurts their ability to fill open positions, but salary increases alone might not solve the shortages, said Edward Anderson, a professor in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas.

And despite hundreds of open positions, some agencies requested additional funding for new positions.

Will more money solve staffing shortages?

“We have physical open beds, but none of us have enough staff to operate them, and the base is the salary,” said Shandra Carter, executive director of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.

Higher wages in the private sector make it difficult for government agencies to compete for employees, but current TJJD salaries fall shorter than those of other state departments, Carter said.

Nurses make $60,080 starting out at TJJD, while at TDCJ nurses begin with a $75,272 salary, and state hospital nurse pay starts at $80,000, according to TJJD’s request to the Appropriations Committee.

Carter said a TJJD attorney left for the same position at another government agency and started with a $20,000 higher salary.

“The additional 5% (raise) this year and then the 5% next year, I do think that that is a salary that will allow us to be competitive as an agency and take the youth that are supposed to be in our care and custody and relieve some of that pressure,” Carter said.

TJJD’s written requests to the subcommittee said the agency recognizes funding alone will not solve retention issues, but money has already helped. On top of raises, TJJD requested funding for mental health services for staffing and other retention strategies.

“Salaries have to be raised to make it competitive with other jobs, but the problem is, it may not be enough,” said Anderson, the UT professor.

The two major causes of the current workforce shortage were early retirements and parents leaving the workforce to care for children after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Anderson said.

“A lot of people realized that they could live off of lower income and be OK,” Anderson said.

If government agencies facing worker shortages don’t address the lack of child care access, salary increases won’t solve the issue, Anderson said.

“If you increase the salary, that doesn't help parents who can't get day care,” Anderson said. “They're not going to pay enough to actually cause government workers to be able to afford an in-house nanny.”

A recent survey found that 3 out of 4 parents said access to child care is a challenge and 41% said child care problems have forced them to turn down a new job, according to USA Today.

Beyond salaries, government agencies have difficulty competing with private companies that tend to offer more opportunity to work from home, Anderson said.

'A bleak time'

While noncompetitive salaries hurt TJJD’s recruitment and retention, the staff shortage has created safety concerns that led to further personnel loss, Carter said.

“When we got to that incredibly devastating level with those catastrophic losses, even some of our most dedicated staff who are committed to this were like, ‘I can't come to work because it's not safe,’ ” Carter said.

Over the summer, children in state lockups lacked access to toilets because extremely low staffing forced the facilities into lockdown, according to reporting by The Texas Tribune.

Last year TJJD’s employee turnover rate was 46% across the agency, and it reached 70% for juvenile corrections officers, according to testimony by Kelsey Vela, a Legislative Budget Board analyst.

Onboarding costs are significant and tend to be underappreciated, Andrerson said. Generally, onboarding costs are estimated to be about three months' salary.

TDCJ faces similar staffing challenges. In April, the department had more than 8,000 correctional officer vacancies, Executive Director Bryan Collier said.

The Legislature authorized a 15% pay raise in April to address worker shortages, and that helped fill 1,500 openings, Collier said.

DPS is currently 550 troopers short, Director Steve McCraw said.

“We have received many complaints that we aren’t staffing the highways as there's an expectation,” McCraw said. “It’s because we don’t have enough bodies to go around, plain and simple.”

Retirement is the main reason troopers are leaving the agency. McCraw said DPS expects 150 departures a year, which makes funding recruitment initiatives crucial.

“You're absolutely right, madam chair, to be worried in terms of recruitment and retainment across our profession,” McCraw said. “It's a bleak time.”

Recommendations from the Legislative Budget Board for DPS include a one-time payment for training academy graduates of no more than $5,000 to help with recruitment.

The Texas Military Department hopes to drive up recruitment by increasing tuition assistance programs and mental health services for employees, Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer said.

The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement requested more than $4 million for recruitment and retention efforts. The agency struggles to compete with both public- and private-sector openings that offer higher pay, said John Beauchamp, interim executive director of the commission.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has fewer employees today than it did 10 years ago, said the agency’s chairman, Kevin Lilly. TABC requested more than $6 million for 30 vacancies.

“We have an industry that is growing at a rapid pace, and yet we have fewer agents to help protect and monitor this $40 billion industry,” Lilly said.

'More positions that we need to fill'

Despite the number of unfilled positions, multiple agencies requested money to create new jobs.

The Texas Military Department requested more than $2.5 million to hire 15 new state guards. The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement requested money for seven additional employees. And TDCJ’s request included $2.5 million to hire 18 mental health professionals for Self Harm Prevention Offices.

TJJD requested $1.1 million to hire 14 new reentry liaisons to help increase services for youths.

DPS requested more than $155 million for 365 additional law enforcement employees.

“We're also a victim of our own requests, meaning that when the Legislature gives us positions, as you did last session, OK, that's more positions that we need to fill on top of the positions that we had,” McCraw said.

State Rep. Mary González, an El Paso Democrat, asked whether DPS recruit schools were at capacity after receiving money last session. McCraw said they had more than 100 students in recent classes but would like to be closer to 150.

“What I'm hearing is that the agency is struggling to fill all its positions and even fill its recruit schools as appropriated,” González said.

“There is no question we can do it,” McCraw said. “Is the environment more difficult? Yes.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: State leaders request additional funding to solve worker crisis