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Nevada Department of Corrections cites training and hospital coverage for rise in overtime costs
Summary
During the Board of Examiners meeting March 11, Nevada Department of Corrections officials told the board rising overtime stems from cadets in training, expanded hospital coverage and higher minimum staffing even as vacancy rates fell.
Governor Joe Lombardo and members of the State of Nevada Board of Examiners pressed the Nevada Department of Corrections on March 11 about why overtime costs have risen even as the department's vacancy rate fell.
Brian Williams, senior deputy director of operations for the Nevada Department of Corrections, told the board that multiple factors are driving higher overtime: recruits hired months before academy start dates cannot staff posts while in training; expanded hospital-coverage duties require officers to accompany incarcerated people to outside medical appointments; and the department has increased minimum staffing and security functions to respond to more contraband and incidents.
"When corrections was having problems trying to fill positions, we created the VAMS so we would hire them so that they wouldn't sit for 3 to 4 months until they start the academy," Williams said, describing how newly hired cadets are unavailable for facility posts during the academy period.
Williams walked the board through the department's methodology for computing overtime tied to cadet training and said that, when multiplied by hours and an average overtime rate, the calculation produced a multi-million-dollar unbudgeted overtime figure per academy session: "you come up with $5,000,463 and 80 5,463,820 overtime unbudgeted per academy," he said in the meeting transcript.
He also said the number of outside medical appointments has increased (Southern Desert averaged 446 in 2023 and 573 in 2024), which raises the number of officers needed for hospital coverage. The department received some legislatively approved hospital-coverage positions in recent legislative sessions but told the board those positions cover only a portion of the average daily need, creating additional unbudgeted overtime.
Governor Lombardo pressed for clarity on timing: "When does the overtime gonna start going down? When they graduate?" Williams responded that overtime should decrease as cadets graduate and become available to staff posts but added that improvements are affected by academy capacity, the number of academy locations and reliance on facility staff as academy instructors.
The department also cited historic changes in staffing policy (including AR 326 minimum-staffing adjustments since 2009) and the operational impacts of COVID and rising contraband as reasons the department is re-evaluating minimum staffing levels.
The board did not take an action tied to the overtime discussion; members asked follow-up questions and indicated they would pursue further review with Department of Corrections staff.
The Board of Examiners then moved on to other agenda items.
