As Orange County correctional staff face more pressure than ever under orders to house immigrants detained by federal immigrants enforcement agents at the local jail, medical staff employed by the corrections department say the county is undervaluing their work.
Orange County Jail, the fourth-largest jail in Florida, houses more than 3,000 people per day on average, as of last year. Since March, the jail has also had an agreement with ICE to serve as a temporary holding center for people accused of violating federal immigration law.
A glaring problem that’s emerged, however, beyond concerns of due process rights for detained immigrants, is that the jail is also short-staffed. According to an internal report, the jail had a 26 percent vacancy rate as of January. To help recruit more correctional officers, the county agreed to give correctional officers a 22 percent raise this year, as part of union contract negotiations.
Registered nurses, mental health specialists and other medical staff for the jail, however, say the county has declined to offer them similar incentives, sparking concern that staff vacancies will only grow worse. One nurse, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said the county told them their jobs “are not considered high-risk,” even though they face dangers such as assault on the job.
“We have had health care staff, nursing staff that have been spat on, physically hurt, anything you could think of,” she told Orlando Weekly. One nurse this past Mother’s Day, she said, had a tablet thrown at her by an inmate, resulting in a broken nose and a jagged cut that required stitches.
Nurses in the private sector, working out of hospitals and other healthcare settings, have reported an acceleration in incidents of workplace violence since the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to feelings of burnout and decisions to leave the industry.
“We are well aware of the things that we face when we go in through those doors to go to work every single day,” the Orange County nurse of nearly 10 years said. “We know there [are] risks, but we also need to be valued.”
The union representing medical staff at the jail — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — is currently in negotiations with the county for a new, three-year contract. Their current union contract, covering about 60 employees, is set to expire Oct. 1.
Compared to correctional officers, the county has offered medical staff just a 5 percent raise in the first year of their next contract, according to the union, leaving medical staff “angry” and feeling undervalued.
Medical staff, like the nurse we spoke to, see the discrepancy in raise offers as a “two-tier” pay system that doesn’t take into account their education and training (considering they are licensed professionals) nor the safety and health risks they face in serving the jail population.
“We’re in closer contact with them than corrections, because we’re doing medical assessments. We have to get close to their chest and hear their hearts,” the nurse explained. “We’re basically up in their faces.”
She doesn’t believe they’re more deserving of raises than correctional officers, necessarily. But she believes they should be treated on par with them. “I love my job,” she said. But a sense of purpose doesn’t pay the bills.
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The union has presented problems to the county that medical staff face on the job — from overcrowding in the jail to short-staffing, inadequate medical supplies, and mental health crises among inmates that are exacerbated by limited psychiatric staff and resources.
Many of those who receive mental health and substance use services in the jail are people who are homeless or have a severe, persistent mental illness, according to a recent report from a jail oversight commission. They’re “frequently arrested” on low-level, nonviolent offenses such as sleeping on public property, “often stemming from their lack of shelter and untreated mental illness,” the report states.
Most people with mental illness are not violent, and are actually more likely to be victims of violent crimes than perpetrators. But issues such as overcrowding, isolation, lack of autonomy and disconnection from family can worsen mental health outcomes and trigger feelings of anxiety and depression.
The longtime nurse said she’s concerned the current state of affairs will only grow worse if the county doesn’t step it up. “I am scared that, in them trying to do this, we will be facing very short staffing at Orange County [Jail], and it’s going to put everybody at risk, not just the nurses, also the patients that we deal with day in and day out.”
When reached for comment, a county spokesperson declined to confirm their wage offer for AFSCME, stating the county “will not discuss pending contract negotiations.” The county also declined to comment on the allegation of retaliation levied against medical staff who speak out about dangerous working conditions.
Under their current union contract, registered nurses at the Orange County Jail earn between $31 and $51 per hour, while the national average is about $45 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Medical clerks at the jail, under the contract, have a starting wage of just $16.54 an hour, while medical and dental assistants are paid an hourly rate of $17.88.
This is significantly lower than correctional officers, who are not required to have completed any higher education, but must have at least completed high school. Under a new contract negotiated by their union, the Jerry B. Haddock Lodge No. 86 of the Fraternal Order of Police, correctional officers are paid a minimum hourly rate of $27.42, maxing out at about $40 an hour. County commissioners approved that contract in April.
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The nurse we spoke to said the county has argued they have a separate, more limited budget for corrections health services, and are refusing to up their offer. “We’re simply asking for equality in pay across the board. Instead, we keep hearing “there’s no budget” and even get comments like “we got DOGE’d,”” a union rep shared in an email Friday, referring to the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (formerly known as the Florida Department of Government Efficiency task force).
“On top of that, every time we bring a proposal, we meet resistance, and when we ask for real numbers on the budget, we just get vague answers instead of transparency,” they continued. “We’ve been trying to work toward a fair agreement, but it’s clear we have a fight ahead of us.”
There’s been pressure placed on the county by the state to keep the county budget tight. Officials from the so-called FAFO (modeled after the controversial federal DOGE team created under President Trump) visited Orange County earlier this month to dig into and assess the county’s spending.
The task force reportedly planned to zero in on about 60 different areas of the county’s finances, including county contracts; salaries of county staffers; spending on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, “or so-called anti-racism”; spending on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and direct spending on programs addressing homelessness, among other requests.
The county jail is reportedly facing increased operational expenses through its housing of undocumented immigrants detained by ICE agents — a cost of $180 per person, per day. Under its agreement with ICE, the jail can temporarily hold detainees for up to 72 hours before they are either moved or released. But the Orlando Sentinel found that, in some cases, detained immigrants are also being cycled in and out and back into the jail, giving ICE agents more time to pick them up and transfer them to a longer-term detention facility.
“Something really particular that we’ve been struggling with, staff-wise, is the influx of ICE patients who leave the jail and within hours come right back,” the nurse told us.
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This article appears in Aug 13-18, 2025.