LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock County Sheriff Kelly Rowe is urging county commissioners to reconsider adopting another no-new-revenue tax rate before October, saying his office has reached a level he described as \u201ccritical mass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rowe raised those concerns during one of the initial budget workshops with the Commissioner\u2019s Court in June, citing staffing shortages, a widening pay gap with other agencies, and a detention center at risk of losing compliance with state jail standards.<\/p>\n
Pay gap driving deputies to other agencies<\/p>\n
Rowe said his top priority this budget cycle is salaries, as the office struggles to retain experienced deputies and recruit new ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key thing here is we\u2019ve got to stem this bleeding of experienced veteran people over to other agencies,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cThe ability that they have created to laterally transfer people over much higher pay ranges is a killer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting pay for a Lubbock County Sheriff\u2019s deputy<\/a> is $56,800, compared to $70,000 for starting officers with the Lubbock Police Department<\/a>. Chief Administrator Dan Corbin gave an example of what that difference could look like for more experienced officers doing the same job, just in a different department.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of our Metro officers went over to the PD, $25,000 raise, swapped badges, he\u2019s still in Metro,\u201d Corbin said.<\/p>\n Vacancies and outside agency reliance<\/p>\n Rowe said the office is at an unprecedented 17 vacancies. He said he has never previously struggled to hire patrol deputies, but several positions have been open for eight weeks.<\/p>\n He said he lost his top crime scene investigator to better pay elsewhere and now must ask the Lubbock Police Department for assistance on major scenes in the county. He also said he has had to request help from the Department of Public Safety.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to reach out to the Department of Public Safety and ask for help when that\u2019s not what happens in large organizations,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cThe Department of Public Safety is here to support the needs of the rural communities and assist them where they are on limited resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Compensation study and budget shortfall<\/p>\n A county compensation study found that screening officers, deputies, detention officers, investigators, and staff sergeants all fall between $6,000 and $8,000 short of the midpoint when compared to agencies across the state.<\/p>\n County Auditor Kathy Williams said the general fund budget for this year is already projected to come in $9 million short \u2014 without any new positions added. Total budget requests are projected to produce a $40 million deficit.<\/p>\n After back-to-back years of a no-new-revenue tax rate, Rowe said funding has fallen too far behind to sustain current operations.<\/p>\n \u201cCrime is not going down,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cYou\u2019re still going to be continuing to arrest people. The citizens are going to continue to expect we\u2019re successfully prosecuting these people and that they\u2019re out of society facing a penalty for whatever crimes they\u2019ve committed.\u201d<\/p>\n Detention center compliance at risk<\/p>\n Rowe said the Lubbock County Detention Center is \u201cteetering\u201d on losing its compliance with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. He says secure electronics in the jail are reaching their end of life and need replacing.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what messaging I can put out, I don\u2019t know what I can get for you guys to understand, we have got to address these issues,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock County Sheriff Kelly Rowe is urging county commissioners to reconsider adopting another no-new-revenue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[13075,7990,2050,2440,1522,2441,2432,131777,2429,37308,131775,6071,666,8469,21011,131776,37305,168,170,169,15766,2448,9216,672,2447,2446,12129,65023,109634,2445],"class_list":["post-372084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-agency","tag-brittany-crittenden","tag-budget","tag-commissioners","tag-county","tag-court","tag-critical","tag-dan-corbin","tag-department","tag-deputy","tag-discussions","tag-dps","tag-funding","tag-help","tag-increase","tag-joe-gilliam","tag-kelly-rowe","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-mass","tag-no-new-revenue","tag-office","tag-police","tag-property","tag-rate","tag-sheriffs","tag-shortage","tag-shortfall","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}