LINCOLN — Lingering problems at Nebraska’s state prisons won’t be solved until facilities are fully staffed, a leading state senator on corrections issues said Monday. And that means better pay for corrections workers, said State Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha.

“It’s going to be a vicious cycle until we fix the staffing,” he said. “You can’t fix the culture, you can’t fix the low morale, until you have more people working at the prisons.”

The comments came after a prison watchdog reported Monday that state prison workers are working record-high overtime hours to cover vacant posts. Nebraska’s prisons — the second-most overcrowded in the nation — are as overcrowded as ever, according to the annual report by the Legislature’s inspector general for corrections.