Sheriff Kelly Rowe warned commissioners the county’s public safety has reached “critical mass” with too many sheriff’s deputies leaving for higher paying jobs and a county jail that – in his words – is “teetering” on the edge of failing a state inspection.
Several department managers held budget workshop meetings with county commissioners last week. Rowe brought a “flat” $65 million budget to the table as budget talks get started for the 2026/27 fiscal year. But he’d ask for more money if he thought he could get it.
“I am at a record low in law enforcement currently. I believe we’re … 17 positions down – with the vast majority of those leaving for other agencies. We’ve lost several to the police department,” Rowe said to LubbockLights.com.
Jason Corley, commissioner for Precinct 2, responded, “This is my eighth budget. Kelly Rowe has said that for eight years in a row.”
“Every time – if you raise pay at the sheriff’s office, PD goes up. They go up on pay. It’s just what they do every single time,” Corley said.
“The state of Texas, they go up too. We’re not going to be able to compete with that,” Corley added.
Cary Shaw, commissioner for Precinct 3, was more sympathetic.
“We have not gotten into breaking down his presentation yet. What I can say is I think we all know we have to address his deputy pay. What that will look like, I don’t know yet,” Shaw said.
Sunshine Stanek, district attorney, also told commissioners she has the same struggle as the sheriff, and Rowe said her staffing challenges affect his jail.
Tense budget cycles
The previous two budget cycles have been tough for Lubbock County officials. In the talks for the 2024/25 budget, Corley and Jordan Rackler – commissioner for Precinct 4 – accused County Judge Curtis Parrish of retaliation for their decision to force the no-new-revenue rate. He denied retaliation.
Corley and Rackler forced the tax rate by not attending – meaning the commissioners had a quorum for a budget but not a super-quorum for setting the tax rate.
In the 2025/26 budget talks, Corley and Kathy Williams – county auditor – had harsh words for each other. Williams and Susan Rowley – justice of the peace for Precinct 2 – also raised voices at each other.
Corley and Rackler stayed for the tax rate vote in 25/26 and had enough votes to pass the no-new-revenue rate.
For the current budget talks, Williams provided an update.
“We’re still in a deficit. If you just talk about the general fund, it’s about $9 million without new positions added. That’s just on operational requests,” Williams said.
There are mandatory expenditures that will make the number go higher, according to Williams.
Right now, she’s estimating the early mismatch between budget requests and total revenue to be about $40 million.
Struggling with salaries
“My office is struggling,” said Sunshine Stanek, criminal district attorney.
“We’re losing people at an alarming rate,” Stanek said.
Stanek presented a chart showing 19 people who left in the last year – of those, 15 accepted jobs with higher pay. Nearly 20 percent of the prosecutor positions are open.
It would take a 25 percent increase in overall salary expense to get her employees where she’d like them to be.
Instead, her request is for a 6 percent cost of living adjustment (COLA), plus another 2 percent she can use for merit pay at her discretion.
“I don’t know if I’m going to fall on deaf ears or not, but I just want to show you a few stats and just let you know what’s going on in our office.” she added.
A compensation study by Crowe LLP compared Lubbock County with other places. One part of the study used 30 representative jobs called “benchmark positions.” Lubbock paid above market for two-thirds and below market for the other one-third.
Rowe said, “There was a compensation study done – showed that public safety in particular was far below the median.”
More precisely, the study showed his department is nearly 9 percent below for captain, more than 9 percent below for sergeant, and nearly 4 percent below for a deputy. Detention officers were 13 percent above market conditions, according to the study.
The comparisons were with the City of Lubbock, Texas Tech University, Hays County, Williamson County, the Economic Research Institute (a salary survey/database) and a Texas Association of Counties salary survey. Only jobs that could be compared directly were used. For example, not every source had a corrections officer (jailer).
But that’s not always helpful for the sheriff. His starting pay for a new deputy is $56,800. For a cadet with the Lubbock Police Department, it’s $70,000.
Rowe told LubbockLights.com, “I always focus on ‘Where am I losing people to?’ And that’s right here around us. The pay is so much better to go over to the police department.”
Also a list of other federal, state and local agencies.
“I lost our senior crime scene guy to Wolfforth PD. I lost a 35-year investigator to them,” Rowe said.
There’s also competition from nearly smaller counties – offering more money than they used to.
Corley said, “One thing that has changed is the money the state has given to these smaller counties where they can afford to pay more for their deputies.”
Lubbock County does not get that particular assistance from the state.
Rowe said, “Patrol has been open since April and they have had next to no [applicants]. In fact, I think they said the first two applicants … didn’t even have peace officer license. I was like, ‘Well, you’re not reading the requirements for the job very well.’”
He thinks to get salaries where they need to be, it would take an additional $7.5 million.
‘Keep us competitive’
Rowe doesn’t need equal pay with police, but he needs it to be at least competitive, he said.
“All I have ever asked is you keep us competitive. I’ll keep them at the sheriff’s office as long as the pay is competitive – because the opportunities are there that they a lot of times will not get over there,” he said.
“We provide great training to these guys. They’re getting good experience, and then I’m foregoing them to another agency for significant pay raises,” Rowe said.
Rowe said the jail is full – with his department paying other counties to house 75 inmates on the day we talked. The number fluctuates daily.
A lack of prosecutors in Stanek’s office makes it worse.
“She can’t keep prosecutors at all, and everything affects the other. So, while the jail’s overcrowded, we’re shipping inmates just because our average length of stay has been increasing. We don’t have cases moving as fast as they can,” Rowe said.
Stanek said of her prosecutors, “They are doing really good work. It’s just they are working harder than they have ever worked because we are so short staffed.”
The county had success with Proposition A in November 2021 “for the purpose of increasing compensation for the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office commissioned peace officers …”
The voter-approved proposition raised the county’s property tax rate almost 10 percent to pay and passed by 57 to 43 percent.
Rowe told commissioners, “We should be talking about potentially going back to the voters again.”
Corley disagreed.
“I think the public’s been pretty clear about that they don’t want to pay more in taxes,” Corley said.
We asked Corley to clarify if he’s not in support of taking the issue to voters.
“All you’re doing is voting to raise taxes,” he said.
Do more with less
“I’d like to see the sheriff’s office – or every department really – come to us with, ‘Hey, here’s some things we’re looking at to reduce costs overall.’ We’ve had other departments that are able to do that,” Corley said.
The county should eventually do less patrolling as time goes on, he said.
“As the city of Lubbock takes more territory [with annexations], why do we need more deputies to patrol the unincorporated areas if they’re shrinking?” Corley said.
Rowe said his patrol officers split the county into five sectors.
Patching up the jail
Rowe told commissioners a leaky roof wrecked some of the electronics in the building during the last few years.
“The biggest ‘zero tolerance’ issue with jail commission when it comes to inspections is life-safety items. That’s non-negotiable,” Rowe said.
“If the inspector walks in and fire panels aren’t working correctly, if they go in and start hitting intercom buttons and they’re not getting a response … they’ll stop inspecting right then and knock you out of compliance,” Rowe said.
Corley said, “One phase of the jail roof has already been done. We’re moving on to a second phase.”
Shaw said, “I went to the jail and took a tour to see some of the things they brought up so we can get a plan.”
But Corley also said Rowe’s department needs to be easier to work with.
“The Sheriff’s Office has complained about maintenance out at the jail, but when we talk to maintenance, maintenance says they won’t give us the escorts we need to go in and do the work when we need to do it,” Corley said.
