Kenton County has extended an incentive program that pays employees at the county detention center a $2,000 bonus for working 2,080 hours annually.
With the Kenton County Detention Center facing staffing shortages in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, county officials began to sound the alarm last year.
In May 2022, the Kenton County Fiscal Court attempted to course correct by passing a resolution that approved a $2,000 yearly bonus to all hourly full-time detention center employees who work 2,080 hours annually, or 1,912 hours if they are actively serving in the military.
Kenton County’s rationale was that the bonuses would help encourage employees to work late shifts, as well as help incentivize prospective employees to apply for corrections officer roles.
On Dec. 12, the court voted to extend the program until Nov. 30, 2024. County Jailer Marc Fields called the program “really successful” and lauded its effectiveness in helping galvanize his jail staff.
“This little incentive is really helping that along of getting people to fill those overtime shifts,” Fields said.
At the time of the meeting, Fields said the Kenton County Detention Center had 90 people on staff — their highest number of employees since 2020.
Corrections facilities across the country have been confronting pressing staffing issues. In 2019, the National Institute of Justice published an article that found some state prison systems have annual corrections officer turnover rates as high as 55%.
On a county level, officials like county administrator Joe Shriver started publicly voicing their concerns about employee retention and turnover at the Kenton County Detention Center in 2022, citing the urgent need for the corrections facility to have employees present on-site throughout the entire day.
“You have minimum staffing out there at the jail, and we need those folks, so what we’re attempting to do is incentivize the actual hours worked,” Shriver said in a fiscal court meeting last May.
The fiscal court resolution passed last May that established the bonus found that outgoing detention center employees felt that “working overtime at current pay rates is creating turnover and a loss of quality personnel.”
