Tanya Hughes, executive director of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, told the Regulation and Protection Subcommittee on Feb. 14 that the agency is asking legislators to fund additional permanent staff and workspace to meet rising investigations and contractual obligations.

The request follows what Hughes described as an increase in cases coming to the state agency, including complaints that are dual‑filed with federal partners. “We were appropriated for 91 positions, but we currently have 92 staff people,” Hughes said, adding the commission has “6 vacancies, which then brings us to 98.”

Hughes and Deputy Executive Director and Commission Attorney Cheryl Sharp said the agency included a personnel expansion in its budget request to add intake staff in regional offices and strengthen the affirmative‑action and contract‑compliance unit. Sharp told the panel the agency has contractual obligations with federal partners and is stretched “to respond to these requests, to respond to the increased requests for training, for meetings.”

The commissioners said the agency is running a deficit in personal services and relying on overtime to keep workloads moving. Hughes said the agency has seen “additional work and investigation” requested from federal bodies and that overtime has grown; Sharp said overtime totals about $200,000 per year and that the agency earlier reported a projected personal‑services deficit in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hughes also flagged a multi‑year plan to create a civil‑rights museum to support the commission’s education and outreach mission and said there is a bond proposal pending to acquire space. Several durational positions the agency currently uses will expire on June 30, 2025, Hughes added; those positions have been critical to current operations, she told lawmakers.

Lawmakers pressed for more detail, and Representative Walker asked the Office of Policy and Management to reconcile position counts with the agency. Committee members said they will follow up with OPM and the Office of Fiscal Analysis to match staffing records to budgeted authorizations.

The commission asked legislators to consider the full expansion request in the next budget cycle and to fund a communications director to help publicize services amid what agency leaders described as rising public concern and requests for training.

Hughes and Sharp provided the committee with testimony and agreed to submit a staffing accounting and more compact statistics on complaint and inquiry volumes for the committee’s working session.

Ending: The commission did not receive any immediate vote; it left the committee with requests for documentation on head count, vacancy authorizations, and workload statistics to guide budget decisions later in the session.