Lubbock County sheriff asks court to fund step-pay fixes, patrol and jail hospital staff amid rising overtime

Lubbock CountySheriffpresented the departmentbudget request and asked the Commissioners Court to approve a two-year correction to the departmentstep-pay chart and to fund new deputies and detention staff to address rising overtime and changing workload.

The sheriff told the court the office has moved from chronic vacancies to near full staffing and that the largest budget pressure is pay structure and personnel. "We have attained full staffing," the sheriff said, "barring just the day-to-day changes." He urged the court to act quickly on vehicle and equipment requests to avoid high costs and limited availability later in the summer.

Nut graf: The sheriffasked the court to approve a roughly $400,000 correction to wage steps (spread across two years), to remove overlapping start steps that discourage promotion, and to fund four new patrol positions, two compliance deputies for gaming/entertainment-business inspections and a multi-year plan to add detention staff for hospital duty. He warned that detention overtime is already large and that medical transports and an aging jail…