North Carolina ranks 49th in the nation for correctional officer starting salary, according to the N.C. Department of Adult Correction. That is not a trend line or an estimate — it is where the state sits right now, ahead of only one other state in what officers take home on day one. Governor Josh Stein has pointed to that figure as the core of the problem, noting that the state cannot compete with private sector employers on pay. He specifically cited Costco as the kind of employer drawing candidates away from corrections jobs. His proposed remedy is a 15% pay raise for correctional officers, a measure that has drawn legislative attention and is being framed as a necessary step toward workforce stabilization and improved prison safety.
The NCDAC acknowledges that staffing levels are the primary reason the state cannot use prison bed capacity it already has. Thousands of prison beds have been closed statewide — not demolished, not decommissioned, simply offline because there are not enough officers to safely staff the housing units that hold them. That constraint has produced a backlog with a concrete count.
1,154 Sentenced Inmates Still Sitting in County Jails
As of August 7, 2026, there were 1,154 individuals sentenced to state prison who remained in North Carolina county jails, unable to transfer because the state system lacked capacity to receive them. The NCDAC confirmed that the backlog is a direct result of staffing shortages. This is not a processing delay at intake — these are people already sentenced, already bound for state custody, waiting in facilities that were never designed to hold them long-term.
Buncombe County reported holding 33 of those individuals in its detention facility. Those 33 people have been sentenced to state custody but have not moved. That number represents one county's share of a statewide operational failure. Local sheriff's offices and detention administrators are absorbing both the financial cost and the operational pressure of housing a population that, by law, belongs in the state system. The delay in transfers has persisted throughout the summer of 2026, the NCDAC said.
The strain extends beyond corrections. The staffing crisis in North Carolina prisons is part of a broader pattern affecting state psychiatric hospitals in the region as well, including Broughton Hospital, where workforce shortages have similarly limited capacity.
What the Pilot Program Does
To attack the vacancy problem, the NCDAC has launched a pilot hiring program designed to reduce the time between application and employment. The specific goal is to prevent candidate loss to employers who move faster through the hiring process. Corrections hiring has historically involved administrative steps — background checks, interviews, medical screening, orientation scheduling — that, when handled sequentially rather than in parallel, can stretch weeks into months. By the time a candidate clears the process, a private sector employer may have already put them to work.
The NCDAC said the pilot targets those administrative hurdles directly, working to streamline onboarding without cutting corners on required training. That balance matters. Correctional officers enter a controlled environment where their own safety and the safety of incarcerated people depends on preparation. The department has acknowledged it is working to move fast without sacrificing the training requirements that make correctional operations functional.
The pilot is being monitored. If the results hold, the NCDAC intends to scale the program statewide to address persistent vacancy rates across the prison system. No statewide rollout date has been announced.
What Comes Next
Legislative action on the 15% pay raise remains the larger variable. The NCDAC is competing for labor in a tight market against both public and private sector employers, and a fast application process only closes a deal that pay has to open first. Governor Stein's proposal puts the raise in front of the legislature as a stabilization measure, not just a recruitment tool — the argument being that retention failures are as damaging as recruitment gaps, and that officers already on the job are also weighing their options against outside employers.
For county sheriffs and jail administrators, the immediate question is how long the transfer backlog holds at current levels. Fourteen hundred sentenced state inmates in county facilities is a number that grows when courts keep sentencing and the state system cannot expand its intake. The NCDAC has not published a target date for clearing the backlog, and the pilot program, even if it succeeds, will take months to move new hires through training and onto the floor.
The department said it continues to treat staffing as the primary operational constraint. Until bed closures reverse, the transfer problem does not resolve — and bed closures reverse only when there are enough officers to staff the units behind them.
