The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is spending nearly twice as much on daily overtime for jail operations than it did two years ago, even though the number of inmates housed at the jails has fallen by about 10% since then.
Overtime spending at the county’s two jails has jumped from an average of about $15,000 a day in fiscal year 2024 to about $30,000 a day through April of the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, an El Paso Matters analysis of Sheriff’s Office overtime spending shows.
At the same time, the average daily jail population has dropped from about 2,760 in FY 2024 to about 2,470 through April of this fiscal year.
County administrators say the overtime spending is significantly above historical levels and is negatively affecting the county budget – which could create financial constraints for the next fiscal year.
The spike in overtime at the El Paso County Detention Facility in Downtown and the El Paso County Jail Annex on the Far Eastside started when Sheriff Oscar Ugarte took office in January 2025. Longtime Sheriff Richard Wiles retired in 2024 and Ugarte was elected to succeed him.
Patrick Gailey, chief deputy of the county’s detention bureau, says vacancies created through retirements and resignations, coupled with regular staff vacations and other leave, contribute to the overtime need. He did not directly address the lower inmate population over previous years.
“When we took over in January of 2025, we came across some shortages that we felt we needed to address in staffing, so the quickest and easiest way to address it was to bring people in for overtime,” Gailey said.
El Paso County Administrator Betsy Keller said county leaders are trying to understand what justifies the need for more jail staffing requested by Ugarte if inmate intake is down.
“We’re in a back and forth with the sheriff right now, and he may have a good reason (for wanting more staff), but just like any of our departments, you can’t just come in and say, ‘I need it,’ right? You have to show us why you need it,” Keller said.
LEARN MORE: El Paso County commissioners review Sheriff’s Office overtime spending for jails
The overtime issue will be discussed at Monday’s County Commissioners Court meeting. The county Human Resources Department will introduce a proposal that could help with staffing at the jails and lessen the use of overtime.
Data on the sheriff’s operations reviewed by El Paso Matters don’t appear to support the agency’s explanations for the skyrocketing overtime at the jail.
The Sheriff’s Office had more detention officers and a lower turnover rate in fiscal year 2025 than the previous fiscal year, according to the Human Resources presentation.
The presentation also shows 526 employees in 2024, compared with 582 in 2025.
The turnover rate averaged 16% over Wiles’ final four years in office, then dropped to 12% in 2025 and is to decline so far this year, the presentation shows.
As a result, the amount of overtime spent per inmate at the jails has more than doubled since Ugarte took office, the El Paso Matters analysis found.
The Sheriff’s Office has taken steps since May 1 to reduce overtime, including not allowing supervisors like lieutenants or sergeants, who are at higher pay levels, to volunteer for overtime in the detention facilities, limiting mandatory overtime and only allowing volunteer overtime at the jail to peak periods.
Gailey said the Sheriff’s Office has reduced its jail operations overtime from about $346,000 in the last two-week pay period of April to $316,000 over the next two-week pay periods in May.
“Our goal is to reduce it as far as we can for the remainder of the year, and then see what we can do going into the next fiscal year,” Gailey said.
The county has had a freeze on adding new positions, though not on filling vacant positions, for all county departments for the last two fiscal years.
The Sheriff’s Office currently has 518 funded jail positions, of which 35 are vacant. About a third of those vacancies are employees who took other jobs, while a handful retired or left for other reasons, the presentation shows.
“I lose them to the federal services, I lose them to private industry, I lose them (for wanting to go) back to school,” Gailey said. “This job’s not for everybody. Once you get in there and you work 12 hours in a jail setting, it’ll take its toll on you if you’re not prepared for it.”
Keller said she believes filling vacancies should be enough to level staffing needs, but said she remains unclear why the sheriff wants more.
The Sheriff’s Office submitted a staffing request for the current fiscal year for 167 additional personnel for jail operations – including 151 uniformed officers and 16 civilian employees – for both jails.
That would have cost the county about $15 million in additional funding, according to the staffing request.
The office also requested 174 new personnel for the law enforcement bureau, including 150 uniformed officers and 24 civilian staff.
The total for both staffing requests would have been about $76 million.
The requests weren’t approved by commissioners.
Ugarte said he asked each of the departments under the Sheriff’s Office, including the jails, to give him a staffing needs list. The needs estimates are based on what they believe is necessary, though no formal study or assessment has been conducted.
The county is now considering a formal staffing study for the detention bureau, while Ugarte said he is also looking to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards that oversees the safety of operations for jails throughout the state.
“We did receive a request – a very large request for additional staffing, and we’re trying to understand really the need for that,” County Commissioner Illiana Holguin told El Paso Matters. “Bookings (in the jails) have actually gone down and right now the jail is considered fully staffed according to the staffing table, so we’re, you know, trying to understand the need for the additional staffing that he’s asking for.”
Gailey and Keller said they are working together to find solutions that will be sustainable in the long run.
“We don’t have any final answers yet,” Keller said.
Concerns about the Sheriff’s Office overtime spending were brought to the Commissioners Court by county administrators during a budget update in February, noting that the public safety sector had spent almost 50% of its budget in the first five months of the fiscal year that started Oct. 1.
County commissioners called for a special meeting with Ugarte and his office April 16 to go over the spending. The six-hour meeting was held entirely in executive session with no action taken following the closed-door discussion.
The post The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is spending more on jail overtime despite fewer inmates. It’s not clear if that’s justified appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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