By admin 
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Gov. Josh Stein wants correctional officers in the state paid more money, stating the Department of Adult Correction is operating with only half of the correctional officers they need right now.
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“What’s clear is we must value the people who dedicate their careers to keeping us safe,” Stein said on Wednesday.
According to Stein, the hiring process can take over a month, which he said is too long for people needing paychecks.
Now, there’s a new pilot program happening at select prisons across the state.
“We’re using now a contingent hiring model to address the problem,” Stein said. “Once someone passes through the initial steps of getting hired, we put them to work immediately in other roles as the certification steps continue to play out. That means people get hired, onboarded, and paid quickly.”
In the last four months, according to Stein, 95 people were hired at three facilities across the state, including Central Prison in Raleigh.
NCDAC leaders said it’s a start, but their biggest challenge isn’t hiring. It’s retention.
“In 2025 we hired 2,647 people,” NCDAC Secretary Leslie Cooley Dismukes said. “1,530 of those were correctional officers, but despite hiring more in 2025 than we did in 2024, we ended the year with fewer filled correctional officer positions.”
As of Thursday, the NCDAC website lists 100 open positions across the state, ranging from plumbers to probation officers.
In an email to CBS 17 News, leaders said the department-wide vacancy rate sits at around 18%. For correctional officers, the average vacancy rate is about 30%, but some facilities have a vacancy rate as high as 60%.
According to Stein, the North Carolina General Assembly will eventually need to step in and act, but in the meantime, he wants pay raised immediately and a higher focus on keeping employees in the field.
“Right now, we’re asking people to put themselves in a very demanding, albeit rewarding, job, and asking their families to make sacrifices on our behalf as well so they can earn less money than they could if they worked at a Costco,” he said.
Statewide, there are more than 5,000 vacant beds in prisons that can’t be used right now because of a lack of staffing. While those beds are offline, department officials said they are using the time to do maintenance.