Staffing challenges in Kentucky's Department of Juvenile Justice are improving.

Lawmakers serving on the Juvenile Justice Oversight Council heard from JPS staff late Friday afternoon.

They said staff increased by more than 100 positions from July 20, 23 to July of this year.

55 of those positions were for security.

Marissa Ridder, who's in H.R.

manager for JJ, credited Senate Bill 162 for the increased staffing.

That bill was passed by the legislature in 2023 and among other things, raised starting pay from 30000 to $50000 a year.

The funding provided through Senate Bill 162 has been instrumental in expanding our candidate pool and ensuring our dedicated staff are compensated with fair and competitive wages.

Senate Bill 162 provided an additional funds for us to allocate 3.2 million for youth worker salaries, 4.8 million for salaries for other positions within the department.

30 million was allocated to increased salaries for Department of Corrections correctional officers, and the 9.7 million was allocated to fund 146 additional positions within the department.

We are seeing positive signs from the investments made over the last two years, and there's no doubt that raising the pay and improving the safety and operations at the facilities has had a positive impact on our recruitment and retention efforts.

SB 162 will also allow the state to enter contracts with third party organizations to provide mental health services for incarcerated juveniles on that issue.

One state lawmaker criticized his colleagues for not doing more.

One of the most disappointing times in my entire career in this legislature occurred last session over this.

Republican State Senator Danny Carroll of Benton was referring to Senate Bill 242.

The bill he sponsored would have set aside $22 million for a special mental health juvenile detention center.

It passed to the Senate but died in the House.

So we as a legislature are we have pointed fingers at DOJ.

We have pointed fingers at the governor.

And now we have some culpability in this problem because we had the opportunity to finish this out.

We had the opportunity to establish a mental health detention center to treat the most severe kids that are detained.

And we didn't do it.

We let the bill die.

We have a crisis in this commonwealth that everybody agreed was a crisis until it came time to pay for it.

And then all of a sudden it wasn't a crisis and the bill dies.

Kentucky's youth detention centers have been under a microscope in recent years following reports of violent riots and attacks.

In May, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it is investigating the state's juvenile detention centers for alleged abuse and neglect.