The Kennebec County Budget Committee is considering unfreezing six corrections’ officers positions at the Kennebec County Correctional Facility in Augusta. Overtime costs at the jail have been on the rise at the facility. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

AUGUSTA — Kennebec County’s two largest departments asked the county’s budget committee Wednesday for a combined $1.35 million more in spending to increase pay and accommodate rising operational costs.

The Kennebec County Correctional Facility, the county’s single largest department, proposed a $14 million budget that would include unfreezing six correctional officer positions that have been capped for the past several years to save taxpayer funds.

Capt. Brian Slaney, the head of jail operations, said the facility has reached its full staffing capacity for the first time since he started working there — but even the current 48 corrections officers are insufficient to effectively and safely staff the jail, as required by state law.

Slaney said a 2007 staffing study found the jail needed about 60 corrections officers for 155 inmates. Since then, he said, state requirements for the jail’s services have grown and even more staffing is necessary.

Plus, he said, the jail’s physical setup — with blocks of cells lining hallways — means the facility needs more staffing than many other jails across the state that use pods, requiring fewer corrections officers. The Kennebec County Correctional Facility was built in 1859.

“It’s not an option to just shut a floor down or release people or not to staff it,” Slaney said. “So that’s really what drives that overtime cost. We need 49 corrections officers with no one taking vacations, no one taking sick time or absent for training, to meet our minimum requirements and post no overtime.”

The jail’s overtime budget grew to $865,700 during last year’s budget cycle from $575,000 the year before. Slaney said he expected the facility would end up spending more than $900,000 over that amount in this budget year. Before reaching full staffing capacity in November, he said, the jail was projecting to spend much more.

Adding six correctional officer positions, bringing the total number of officers to 54, would mean spending about $300,000 more in the next fiscal year, Slaney said — but doing so would reduce the risk of exceeding the overtime budget and would make the jail safer for officers on duty.

Windsor Town Manager Theresa Haskell proposed the committee fund three of those six positions, with the intent either to increase to six mid-way through the fiscal year or at the start of the following year.

Slaney said that would require the same balancing act he has to work through now.

“There’s no right or wrong answer to that — I think that the more staff that we’re able to hire is what’s going to drive that overtime cost down,” Slaney said. “We can hire three, but we’re still going to being paying more overtime, but you’re not going to be funding that position.”

Overtime has also increasingly become an issue for the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office, where more than 70% of the $300,000 overtime budget has already been spent.

Sheriff Ken Mason did not propose to increase that line in the new budget, but he did ask for an additional deputy to help reduce need for overtime and compensate for the three deputies that have been contracted as school resource officers. Several shifts a week that would be covered by an 18th deputy are currently paid for through overtime.

“Right now, we’re not filling (one shift) because we just don’t have enough people,” Lt. Chris Read said, adding that he expects the overtime budget to be exceeded this year.

Maine State Police has also struggled with skyrocketing overtime costs. Last year, the agency surpassed $10 million in overtime payments, a number that has consistently increased for at least the past decade. Overtime more than doubled between 2015 and 2024.

Increases to public safety spending at the county level also come as state funding for those programs stagnates.

In a February letter to legislators, Somerset County Administrator Tim Curtis said jails across the state are in desperate need of more funding. Earlier this year, county administrators asked state lawmakers for about $14 million for jails, but that request was reduced to about $4 million in Gov. Janet Mills’ budget, leaving Kennebec County with much less than it had hoped for.

“At this level of financial support, the State contributes less than 20% of the overall cost of operating County Jails notwithstanding the fact that the primary function of our county jails is to support the statewide criminal justice system over which county government has relatively little control,” Curtis wrote.

The budget committee will meet again next week to hear from three more county departments. Two public hearings are scheduled for 6 p.m. the following week — one on March 17 at 150 Main St. in Waterville and one on March 18 at 125 State St. in Augusta.