Nebraska prisons offer more money to attract and keep employees

Oct. 2, 2017, 5:29 a.m. ·

frakes_0.jpg
Corrections Director Scott Frakes discusses prison pay initiative (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

Listen To This Story

Nebraska will offer hiring bonuses and increased pay for Corrections employees, in an effort to reduce vacancies and forced overtime in the state’s prison system.


Corrections Director Scott Frakes announced Monday that the first 100 new employees hired to work at the state prison in Tecumseh or the state Penitentiary in Lincoln in the next six weeks will receive bonuses of $2,500. In addition, staff at Tecumseh will get a 2.5 percent pay raise if they’ve worked there one to three years, and a 10 percent raise if they’ve been there more than 10 years.

To read the press release on pay initiatives, click here.

Frakes says staffing has been a problem at the prison 50 miles southeast of Lincoln since it opened in 2001. “At this point Tecumseh has the greatest number of vacancies, highest rate of turnover, and a sixteen year history of struggling to fill positions. So I would place it as the greatest need. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other needs within the agency. Nor does it mean that the Tecumseh staff are more important to me or more valuable to the agency. But that is the first focus,” Frakes said.

There have been two riots that resulted in the death of four inmates at Tecumseh in the last two years.

Frakes said the hiring bonuses would cost $250,000, and the pay increases about $750,000 a year. He said the money would come from existing funds, including a reduction in how much the agency would have to pay for overtime.