NC prison staff will get raises, but still among nation’s lowest-paid, agency says

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Despite the newly passed state budget providing significant pay raises for North Carolina Department of Adult Correction employees, more funding in the future is needed to retain and recruit staff, the agency said.

About a fifth of the department is vacant due to comparatively low pay, long hours and high stress. Across the agency, there’s an average vacancy rate of 30% for correctional officers. Some prisons are seeing 60%.

The budget bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law Tuesday by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein includes an average 15.4% raise for correctional officers, which includes longevity-based step increases. For probation and parole officers, it proposes an average 10.1% raise when step increases are included.

The agency previously told The News & Observer that it is “very hard to recruit and retain” correctional officers with salaries starting at about $37,000 and topping out around $54,000.

Department of Adult Correction Secretary Leslie Cooley Dismukes at the budget bill signing on Tuesday said she is grateful for the raises laid out in the budget, which she said are the “largest legislative raises in decades” and should help recruit and retain correction staff.

“For too long, we have been running this agency without the money to pay our staff, fix our prisons or rehabilitate our inmates,” she said. “The budget is a start, but we have a long way to go.”

The agency has previously said that North Carolina ranks last nationally for prison officers’ pay.

Dismukes said that while the correctional officer raises are “significant, they still leave North Carolina ranked among the 10 lowest-paying states in the country.”

“We are better than that,” she said.

The agency has been holding hiring events where applicants can receive conditional job offers the same day, as well as advertising in local churches, community colleges and on social media.

Stein said getting more employees in the door will be easier “when they see that they can actually earn a better living,” referencing the pay increases. He called the raises “long overdue.”

“The key message is this is real progress, but the work is not done,” he said. “We have to do more next year and the year after.”

The budget allocates $500,000 in one-time funds to contract with a company for a recruitment and retention program covering the State Highway Patrol and the Department of Adult Correction, according to budget documents.

Dismukes said the past two months were the first time in a year and a half that the Department of Adult Correction gained more correctional officers than it has lost. Over the same year and a half, she said, the prison population has grown by more than 1,000 people.

“As I mentioned, we have a lot more to do,” she said. “ … I expect really good results by the end of the year.”

Dismukes said when prisons are not adequately staffed, the agency is less able to run programs that ensure prisoners receive educational and vocational training and are released in good health.

She said the agency is tasked with ensuring offenders are no longer a threat to public safety, and that they return to society as productive members.

“We will not be able to succeed in this mission if we continue to be chronically underfunded,” she said.

Dismukes said the Department of Adult Correction funding in the budget will invest in the agency’s operational security, including vehicles, cameras, body scanners and funding for ballistic vests and body armor.

She said there’s also funding to replace aging medical equipment and outdated fire suppression systems, as well as for local reentry councils across North Carolina. The councils help those who were formerly incarcerated make the transition back into society.

There are 20 state-funded councils that serve 26 different counties, which is fewer than last year due to lack of funding, according to the agency’s website.

Dismukes said lawmakers and her agency communicated throughout the budget process, and she hopes to continue that communication as part of an effort to “adequately compensate” all agency staff members.

This story was originally published July 7, 2026 at 5:45 PM with the headline “NC prison staff will get raises, but still among nation’s lowest-paid, agency says.”