MIDLAND, Texas — Discussions at Midland County Commissioners Court got passionate Wednesday as Midland County Sheriff David Criner made his request for pay raises within the Midland County Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff Criner wanted to use Texas Senate Bill 22 as the funds to provide the pay raises.
Senate Bill 22 - passed by Texas legislature in 2023 - is a state grant that provides a certain amount of money towards sheriff's offices', constables and prosecutors.
The amount of money sent out is dependent on how many people a county serves.
“The amount is dependent upon your population, anybody under 200,000 will get $500,000," Midland County Judge Terry Johnson said. "That's where we fall in. So we're at about 170,000 population, so we qualify for the $500,000 grant.”
That money can be used for many things, like pay raises and buying new equipment.
Of the two, Sheriff Criner's goal for coming to court Wednesday was to ask for an increase in MCSO employee salaries.
“It's gonna be a seven percent pay raise, which is going to use all of that $500,000 this year," Sheriff Criner said. "It'll be a little bit more next year, but I think that the commissioners will be gracious enough to give us an additional funds for fiscal year 25-26.”
Discussing and agreeing to the pay raises wasn't that cut and dry.
While the court was more than happy to apply for the grant and to give MCSO the salary bump, there was some concern that this grant - which is only for two years - could leave Midland County responsible for picking up the tab if state legislature doesn't continue the grant.
Even with the grant money, Midland County will still need to pick up some of the bill.
“Going forward with this Senate Bill $500,000 grant and the funds that we have now, it will cost $636,000 to go forward," Sheriff Criner said. "If you subtract the $500,000 from each year, that would leave a $136,000 budget left over and that will need to be approved each year to keep this seven percent increase.”
Another issue raised was with the county jailers.
According to Judge Johnson, Senate Bill 22 lists the sheriffs, deputies and jailers as eligible to receive some of the funds, but Judge Johnson says the jailers are being omitted.
“His claim today in court was that they're the best paid in the state and they don't need anymore," Judge Johnson said. "Again, I go back to we're building the jail, we're looking at building a $170 million jail. We need every jailer we can get and we need to hang on to the ones we have.”
However, after much debate, the salary raises and the senate grant were approved by the court, who were confident that they could find the money to keep up the salary increases.
Sheriff Criner went on to say that this bump in pay will inevitably help keep Midland County's streets safe from crime and retain deputies within the county.
“It's a bump of appreciation from the legislature. It's because they know how hard they work and they know that sometimes counties are underpaid for deputies. We're competing with oil field out here and we're also competing with Odessa PD and Midland PD who just got some bumps in their salaries to their officers because it's so important," Sheriff Criner said. "Safety is important in Midland County, and we need to get more deputies out on the streets. We need to retain those deputies with experience to keep these people safe and the women and children safe as well.”
Salaries will be bumped up from about $61,000 to about $65,000. It will go into effect by the next pay period.