Oklahoma DOC Paid Prison Guards $35.5 Million in Overtime in 2025
Last year, prison guards working beyond their standard hours accounted for close to half of all overtime spending for state employees in Oklahoma, according to an analysis of payroll data by Tulsa World. Throughout 2025, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) paid guards $35.5 million in overtime, due to a longstanding staffing crisis at the agency’s facilities.
For comparison, the second-largest source of overtime spending for Oklahoma went to its Department of Human Services, which received $8.3 million in employee overtime wages during the same period.
The DOC’s total for 2025 marks a decrease from 2024, when it paid $37.48 million in overtime, likely a state record, as Tulsa World reported. Since 2010, when the figure was only $7.7 million, overtime payments to guards have grown by 361%.
A report published in 2022 by the Oklahoma legislature found DOC facilities were operating with 40 to 45% of the number of staff necessary to adequately run its prisons. For nearly 30 years, from the early 1970s to mid-1990s, the DOC was under federal supervision due to civil rights violations. Staffing shortages were a primary driver of these conditions, the report highlighted, adding that some of those same conditions—such as preventable prisoner deaths—are reemerging.
Source: Tulsa World
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