Overtime pay to Virginia Department of Corrections security staff increased by about 127% between fiscal years 2018 and 2025, costing $247 million in the process.
The greatest change came between 2021 and 2022, when the department upped the payments by 62%, according to documentation obtained through a public records request. The increased OT pay comes amid persistent staffing shortages — a national problem — that’s been blamed for violence in Virginia prisons.
Department spokesperson Kyle Gibson wrote in an email that overtime is intended “to provide essential security post coverage at facilities throughout the VADOC.”
After Corrections Officer Jeremy Hall was reportedly killed by an incarcerated person at the River North Correctional Facility in 2025, Dawn Hall, his widow, sued the department, claiming the agency failed to provide a safe workplace for her late husband. The defendants in the case, including former VADOC Director Chadwick Dotson, have motioned for the case to be dismissed.
Annual overtime payments at River North increased from about $50,000 to $1.3 million during the eight-year period, totaling $4.2 million, according to department data. About halfway through the current fiscal year, the facility is on-track to surpass the previous year’s OT pay.
Correctional officers have a higher rate of alcohol abuse and mental health issues than the American public, said Gerard Robinson, a University of Virginia professor who researches criminal justice reform. Awareness of those issues could make hiring additional staff more difficult.
“When you hear that and you couple it with less-than-great pay that you think you should receive, it's going to be really tough to not only recruit but keep people,” Robinson said.
Current job postings for CO positions in Virginia list a starting salary of around $47,000.
In early March, VADOC announced the Office of Law Enforcement Services was investigating another officer allegedly being attacked while on duty at the Greensville Correctional Center. The facility’s OT payments have ebbed over time, but have increased by about $1 million since 2018. Department data indicates Greensville paid out $5.3 million in overtime during 2023, the highest single-year total in the data set.
VADOC’s Gibson pointed to 2022 budget language that increased CO compensation, saying it translated to higher OT pay. In 2023, the payments reached their highest point since 2018, coming in at a little over $42 million.
Gibson wrote that the department “does not have a detailed breakdown” of overtime and was sent information Radio IQ obtained through public records requests along with a few follow-up questions. His response was that “VADOC cannot provide any additional details.”
In a Feb. 4 email obtained through a FOIA request, Joseph Walters — who was appointed director of the department by Gov. Abigail Spanberger earlier this year — wrote to staff about “Safe Inside: A 50-State Analysis of Workforce Trends in State Departments of Corrections,” a national study conducted by corrections industry leaders and partially funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
He asked staff to review the document and “be prepared” to discuss the information at an upcoming senior leadership meeting.
The report used national publicly available data — which largely did not include Virginia — and arrived at a number of broad conclusions: The remote location of some prisons presents a recruiting problem; assaults on security staff and among incarcerated people increased substantially between 2019 and 2024; deaths in custody have increased; and that COs “face the highest rates of workplace violence in the country — nearly twice those of law enforcement officers.”
It also addresses overtime pay, saying that nationally, correctional staff accounts for an outsized amount of OT and generally make $21,000 less than police officers.
A part of the state spending plan currently being negotiated in Richmond includes $7.8 million for corrections staff bonuses in FY27. And while the agency’s budget decreased between FY25 and FY26, the current biennial budget proposal could see VADOC’s allocation increase by about $90 million during the next two years. By 2028, the agency’s budget would be about $1.6 billion.
“A higher salary is an incentive—not a magic wand. Meaning a pay increase can support current staff and attract new talent, which is a good thing,” UVA’s Robinson wrote in a follow-up email. “That decision alone cannot fix understaffing. The effects of in-prison work on home life and mental health of correctional officers deserve attention as well because they influence understaffing.”