NEW BOSTON, Texas - Bowie County officials are looking at hiring 174 full-time correctional officers for the county's correctional lockup and the Bi State Justice Building jail.
Some of these slots will go to correctional officers already working at these facilities for LaSalle Corrections who reapply. But there also will be new hires.
Last month, LaSalle Corrections, a private company that's managed Bowie County's Correctional Center for several years, notified the county of its intent to withdraw once its current contract expires Feb. 12. The decision will leave both the center and Bi-State jail to once again be operated by the county Sheriff's Office.
After spending about 90 minutes in closed executive session Monday, Bowie County Commissioners agreed that both locations will collectively need that many jailer positions, in addition to about 12 part-time correctional officer positions, according to county records released late Monday morning.
Although a number of LaSalle Corrections former employees are looking at being hired by the county. the county is looking for new applicants to fill any staffing voids should the number of former LaSalle employees falls short.
Bowie County Auditor Jennifer Beckett said both the full-time and part-time jailers will be paid $14 a hour. She added that once the positions get filled - which needs to be accomplished by Feb. 13 - both lock-ups will be operated on a budget that will last from about mid-February to September, at which time the county will be planning and approving it's new fiscal year budget for 2020-2021.
County officials are still working on the jail budget that will cover the next seven months and two weeks.
Transport vans
In other business, Commissioners approved buying two 15-passenger transport vans off the state contract for use at the Bowie County Correctional Center.
Cybersecurity attacks
Regarding the cybersecurity hack attacks earlier this month, Bowie County Judge Bobby Howell said the situation is still under evaluation and technical teams are still trying to determine if the county's computer system is now completely clear of any residual malware damage.
"Right now, we are still making progress in getting our system re-secured," Howell said. "But I'm still not able yet to put a time-line on when things will be back to normal, but we now know, so far, that no personal data was compromised." Howell said.