Carbon County has reached a new three-year collective bargaining agreement with the union representing its correctional officers, commissioners announced Thursday.

The contract was finalized well ahead of schedule and securing what officials called a significant structural change to how part-time employees are handled.

The agreement with the National Correctional Employees Union covers the period of Jan. 1, 2026, through Dec. 31, 2028, and provides a 3% wage increase each year.

It also includes minor adjustments to employee health insurance premium copays and prescription copays, and establishes a new system for filling open shifts through text and email notification rather than the previous callout procedure.

Perhaps the most consequential change, commissioners said, was the removal of the county’s four part-time correctional officers from the bargaining unit entirely.

“That is actually a win for the county,” Commissioner Michael Sofranko said. “Having part-time employees in the union really tied the county’s hands as to how to be able to adjust.”

The timing of the agreement was itself notable. The county’s prior contract, which ran from Jan. 1, 2024, through Dec. 31, 2025, and included 5% annual raises, had itself come only after a protracted standoff. The agreement before that expired at the end of 2022, leaving officers without a new contract for two years — a gap that ultimately required a retroactive wage arrangement to resolve. Commissioners said they were determined not to repeat that experience.

“First of all, it’s done early,” Sofranko said of this pact. “This was one that was constantly always seemed to fall to the back. Always took quite a bit.”

For the new contract, commissioners said 3% was the right number.

“When you start going above that 3% number … well it’s a safe number,” Sofranko said. “We all felt it was fair.”