LAWTON – Comanche County Detention Center employees will start getting paid every two weeks instead of once a mon th.
The Comanche County Facilities Authority, which is made up of the three county commissioners, voted 3-0 Aug. 5 to switch jail employees’ payroll from monthly to biweekly. The change, which will affect the jail’s current staffers as well as future employees, is set to begin Sept. 1.
The county will tap its Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund to provide an extra paycheck for CCDC staffers for the month when the jail is making the tr ansition to a biweekly pay schedule.
Interim Commissioner Trent Logan suggested tabling the proposal so the com missioners would have more time to discuss it further.
“Because the big question is, if they’re going to do it, I think we should do it f or more than just the jail,” he said. “Why not implement it in more places than just there?”
But Commission Chairman Josh Powers, who acts as a liai son between the commission and the jail, said the board needed to act immediately due to the jail’s scheduled pay dates.
“If not, the employees are going weeks without pay when they’re not used to that,” he said. “ In my opinion, they’re already underpaid, so it causes an issue. If we delay it any more, that’s going to recreate a good chunk of stuff.”
Logan later said he liked the proposal and made a motion to approve it, which passed 3-0.
Changing pay schedules Commissioner Johnny Owens wanted to know whether the county’s other officials were interested in switching to a biweekly pay schedule.
“Have any of the o ther elected officials or other offices brought up this before?” he asked.
Powers said CCDC’s employees are different from staffers for other county offices, who typically remain in their job for a long time.
“The problem is that at the jail, though, it’s more like a—consider it like a fast -food job,” he said. “ They have a lot of people who come in there and try out for the job and then decide later that they don’t like it, and it’s a really quick turnaround.”
Powers said the high turnover rate is causing problems because jail employees are paid midway through each month, meaning they receive a full paycheck even if they quit a few days later.
“Now, we are trying to recollect money that we paid out for somebody who was supposed to be ther e for the whole month, and they’re gone,” he said. “And now, we don’t have a way to recollect that money.”
Jail Administrator David Weber said his employees are frustrated because they aren’t getting paid more often.
“And what they’re getting paid—it’s not good for them,” he said. “They’re quitting because they only get paid once a mon th.”
In a July 25 let ter to the board, Weber proposed using money in the county’s Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund to pay jail staffers a onetime additional paycheck for the month that the jail mov es to its new pay schedule. He said the extr a paycheck would ease the transition to a ne w pay schedule.
“My staff struggle(s) with their current salaries, and to move to biweekly pay without help would cause even more problems for them,” Weber wrote.