In our blog post from back then, we speculated that county officials are engaged in a silent struggle with law enforcement, one side determined to cut costs by reducing the number of prisoners to be housed, the other equally intent on incarcerating as many poor Black residents of Allegheny County as possible. Our theory was based on a Post-Gazette article outlining the steps county executive Sara Innamorato’s administration was taking to reduce the average jail stay. An April piece, this one from the resolutely centrist on-line outlet Center Square, sheds potential light on the response of ACJ warden Trevor Wingard. The article reports that overtime for jail employees skyrocketed in 2025 (Wingard’s first year on the job), in spite of employment being near the facility’s budgeted allotment of 396 guards.
The question Center Square couldn’t answer is why? Why would the jail be spending more on overtime now that it’s fully staffed than it did during the pandemic years when it was truly short-handed? Both jail leadership and the guards’ union refused to talk to Center Square’s reporter, but we have a theory. They’re building a cushion. The overtime is meant to be sacrificed to future budget cuts so Wingard doesn’t have to reduce staff. Here’s why we think so:
One, we know that the county is facing a budget crunch. Property tax revenue has dropped due to reduced property values downtown and elsewhere, and under Trump federal revenue has been cut as well. Neither of these problems is likely to improve any time soon. Two, we know from the PG piece that Innamorato is perfectly willing to reduce costs at the jail to save money. Innamorato will be in office until 2028 at the earliest, and very likely longer if she decides to seek reelection. And three, as we have seen, her efforts are bearing fruit. On current trends, ACJ’s population will drop below the ratio of four prisoners per guard considered ideal (per Center Square) sometime next year. At that point, it will be very hard for Wingard to stave off a reduction in personnel – unless he has something else to offer up. That something is overtime. Instead of suffering what could well be a long term reduction in allotted staff, he can offer to slash overtime back to previous levels, hoping to inflate it again if the county’s financial position improves.
A naive observer might wonder why he’d bother. After all, what difference does it make if your jail has fewer guards as long as it also has fewer prisoners to care for? Shouldn’t Wingard be happy to help his boss balance her budget? Such thinking ignores the nature of bureaucracies. Bureaucrats always want more responsibilities, so they can complain that they’re short staffed, so they can hire more underlings, so they can take on more responsibilities. This is how they build their petty empires, except at a jail that empire is built on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable. Trevor Wingard isn’t thinking about helping the county save money, he’s looking at all the empty floors at his jail and salivating about filling them up. Many jails around the country are overcrowded. ACJ by contrast holds only a little more than half its capacity of 3459 (including the alternative housing at Renewal). To a jail warden, that’s wasted potential that can never be realized if his staff keeps getting cut. Sara Innamorato needs to understand this dynamic and be ready to fire Wingard if he doesn’t get fully on board with reducing ACJ’s prisoner count.