Arlington County’s sheriff is seeking better pay for his deputies, citing demanding working conditions at the jail despite some progress toward better safety.
With dozens of off-duty deputies in the audience at a recent budget meeting, Sheriff Jose Quiroz argued that his employees deserve salary increases closer to those proposed for other public safety workers.
While Arlington firefighters are anticipating an 11% raise and police officers expect a 9% pay bump, Arlington County Sheriff’s Office employees are only on track to be included in an across-the-board 3.5% salary increase for Arlington County employees.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” Quiroz told the Arlington County Board at a work session last week. “Since Feb. 22, you can imagine, all I hear about is, ‘Why are we getting 3.5%? What did we do wrong? Why do we not matter? What makes us different?'”
The sheriff’s office primarily oversees safety at the county jail and courthouse.
The agency — which has come under fire for in-custody deaths, safety concerns and extensive lockdowns amid staffing shortages — has made some progress in key areas over the past year. The number of lockdowns has decreased, as has to agency’s turnover rate.
Medical issues like withdrawal symptoms and mental health episodes continue to present significant challenges, according to Quiroz and sheriff’s office data. However, the sheriff told ARLnow that he hopes an ongoing transition from contracted medical care to a “county-run, community-based model” will help provide higher-quality care in the future.
A major step toward this is coming at the end of this month, when the sheriff’s office is expected to take on a new chief medical director.
At the work session, several County Board members expressed sympathy for Quiroz’s requests but stopped short of making concrete promises.
“I will say that your comments have been impactful, and I’ll have to wrestle with them,” Vice-Chair Matt de Ferranti said. “There is no ongoing expense that I can think of that [I am] more troubled by than the limit on what we have done to this point in this arena.”
Jail workers face extensive challenges
In making the case for pay bumps, Quiroz read aloud from an email he received from staff which outlines some of the unique difficulties that corrections officers face.
“Staff get assaulted here by people throwing chairs, punching us, throwing bodily liquids, spitting on us,” he read. “Staff are cursed out. Staff are threatened by people that say they want to kill us or harm our families.”
Reported “assaults on staff” more than doubled between Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024, from 28 to 66, according to sheriff’s office data.
The email went on to describe the difficult jobs corrections officers are regularly tasked with.
“It’s not uncommon in our job to save a life, or break up a fight, or hear someone banging and yelling for an extended period of time, and someone has smeared blood, feces, urine in the area we work,” Quiroz read. “This is not normal or tolerated compared to any other job.”
The sheriff said mental health issues are at the root of many of these issues. So far this fiscal year, the sheriff’s office has averaged 144 individuals per day with identified mental health concerns.
Stopping people with the most severe issues from harming themselves and others can place a severe burden on staff. Quiroz described one recent instance of a person requiring medical attention on multiple occasions for inserting objects into their urethra.
To stop the person from doing this, the jail placed them under constant observation between September and February.
“Every single day, the staff had to prevent harm — because this person would make the situation worse on themself,” Quiroz said.
While ACSO staff aren’t often involved in emergencies outside the jail, the sheriff argued that their working conditions and the service they provide make them worthy of a pay boost comparable to what other public safety employees are receiving.
“It’s really hard to say, ‘You’re doing a great job, but you get a little bit of this, and these folks get a lot a bit of that,'” he said. “It’s not fair.”
Progress at the jail
Though County Board members emphasized the difficult decisions they face this fiscal year, several also said they want to support corrections officers if possible.
“Recruiting and retention is significant,” County Board member JD Spain Sr. acknowledged. “If you want to keep people, you’ve got to pay people.”
Spain is the former president of the Arlington NAACP, which has advocated for better conditions at the jail.
He applauded sheriff’s office data indicating some progress on longstanding issues.
Lockdowns at the jail have decreased substantially in recent years, dropping from 711 in FY 2022 to 443 in 2023 and 230 in 2024. This fiscal year, the jail is projected to see a total of 146 lockdowns.
The turnover rate has also dropped. While 30 deputies left the sheriff’s office in FY 2023, only 15 left last fiscal year and 10 have left this year.
With 57 sworn vacancies, however, overtime hours are projected to rise from 80,156 in FY 2024 to 97,574 this year.
Additionally, Quiroz underscored the importance of recent changes in the jail’s medical model.
The facility currently contracts out much of its medical care through Mediko Correctional Healthcare — a company that the county signed on with after abandoning its former provider, Corizon Correctional Health, following a series of jail deaths.
Ultimately, Quiroz wants to transition to an in-house medical model. He has hired a new medical director, Dr. Richard Malish, who will oversee both administrative and clinical duties starting Monday.
“I ran for sheriff, and I believe in this place, but I need a need an expert that’s going to sit next to me and say, ‘Hey, Jose, this is what we should do,'” the sheriff told ARLnow.
Other planned changes, like providing corrections officers with body-worn cameras, are still in the works. The County Board has allocated $161,140 for the cameras but the sheriff’s office hasn’t yet implemented the change.
Overall, the proposed FY 2026 budget calls for a 2.8% increase to bring sheriff’s office expenditures to $55,093,261. Nevertheless, Quiroz maintained that his agency needs more.
“You have people that want to see this place succeed, and I’m asking for your support to make sure that we succeed,” he said.
Photo via Arlington County/YouTube
