ATLANTA— During a Georgia Department of Corrections budget hearing Wednesday, Commissioner Timothy Ward briefly hit on one of the many challenges of the embattled department — staffing shortages. 

The department has a 49% turnover rate among correctional officers, who are tasked with supervising inmates.  

“We have a challenging work environment, we have aging infrastructure, we have more violent offenders with longer sentences and a lack of telework for our staff,” Ward said Wednesday.   

Salary presents a challenge within DOC, Ward said, who later added that Georgia is currently among the lowest paid correctional officers compared to neighboring states.  

In the state’s FY 2021 budget, a 10% salary increase was approved to enhance retention. Another $5,000 salary increase is recommended in Gov. Brian Kemp’s FY 2023 budget for all state employees.  

If the $5,000 increase is approved, that would boost the minimum salary for a correctional officer at a minimum security prison to $36,044, and after a year to $39,640. For a close security facility, the boost would make the starting salary $39,144, and after a year to more than $43,000.  

“We are kinda at the bottom without pay raises right now,”  Ward said.  

According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, once a correctional officer trainee is promoted to a correctional officer—typically after seven months— the salary is near $36,500. Fourteen months from hire, the pay jumps to $40,285.  They would also be eligible for up to $7,500 in bonuses.

As of Dec. 16, 2021, entry-level correctional officers in Tennessee make  $44,520 per year, with an automatic promotion to correctional officer 2 and a salary increase to $46,752 per year after a one-year probationary period.  Newly hired correctional officer applicants are eligible for a $5,000 sign-on bonus payable over an 18-month period, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections.  

Mississippi has the lowest pay in the country for correctional officers. According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, the starting for correctional officer is below $27,000 annually.  

Ward said while pay is a challenge, the lack of technology is also a barrier to retaining younger people in the workforce, as many of the DOC’s procedures involve paper documents.  

“We’re pushing really hard to try to leverage technology as far as retention goes,” he said.  

Many of questions from the state’s joint appropriations committee went unanswered during the hearing Wednesday, as Ward’s presentation was limited to only 20 minutes amid other state departments’ presentations. The DOC presentation was likely one of the most anticipated by the committee, especially as the Department of Justice is investigating the conditions of confinement of prisoners held in Georgia’s prisons.

One focus of the federal investigation is violence among inmates and subsequent lack of inmate protection. Much of prison violence has been linked to gang activity. More than 14,000 inmates have been validated as gang affiliated, Ward said.  

In response to a committee member question, Ward said the DOC has now partnered with a company that helps classify and identify potential gang members, and determine appropriate areas of DOC facilities to house them.

Ward said the DOC is currently overseeing 45,551 offenders among its facilities— 73% of them for violent crimes. The average length of current inmate sentencing is 29.58 years, with more than 1,675 of them serving life without parole.  

Ward touted the addition of mental health counselors at five of its facilities, adding that 21% of the prison’s population have a mental health classification.