www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20060227-2124-guards-staff.html
Some 2,400 rank-and-file correctional officers' pay exceeded $100,000 in 2005, compared with 557 the year before, a San Diego Union-Tribune analysis of payroll figures shows. One guard grossed $187,000, making him the highest-paid correctional officer in California, according to data provided by the state controller's office. At the historic San Quentin State Prison near San Francisco, one out of five guards was paid more than $100,000 last year. To many lawmakers and others, the ballooning figures offer fresh evidence that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's drive to overhaul the $8 billion prison system has stalled. State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation remains one of the "most failed" agencies in California. The payroll figures, she said, "hit me hard in the belly. Reform has been slow in coming,and I would say largely it's nonexistent." She was shown the figures analyzed by the Union-Tribune. The governor's promised shake-up appeared to suffer a blow over the weekend when prisons chief Roderick Q Hickman abruptly quit after two years on the job. Hickman reportedly said he lacked the political support from the governor and legislators to carry out major revisions. Corrections officials attribute the guards' rising payroll costs primarily to conflicting trends: The inmate population is swelling, and many prisons remain hobbled by guard shortages. Elaine Jennings, a spokeswoman for the prison system, said Monday the sharp growth in correctional officer overtime mirrors the growth in the prisons' population. Jennings disagrees with those who see the figures as further evidence of dysfunction within the prison system. "I don't think it's a sign of disorganization or of failed leadership," she said. State guards last year collected an average base pay of $57,000, an increase of 27 percent since 2003, but less than the average base pay of a CHP officer or a San Diego police officer. To cover gaps in staffing, however, thousands of correctional officers often worked longer than the standard 41-hour week, substantially boosting their pay. Cash-strapped California spent $277 million last year on guard overtime, twice as much as in 2004. The Union-Tribune analysis reviewed three years of raw payroll data - 2003 through 2005 - provided by the state controller's office at the newspaper's request. Paul Sutton, a criminal-justice professor at San Diego State University, called the paychecks obscene. but a lot of people work very hard and don't make a fraction of what most correctional officers make," he said. "That is just upside down in a state that is struggling financially and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future." Lawmakers and others say the state exacerbated the guard shortage in late 2003 when it suspended classes for several months at a correctional officer training academy near Sacramento. Prison officials vowed early last year to clamp down on overtime after repeated warnings from state budget analysts about runaway payroll costs. The promises came in the wake of the governor's pledge to overhaul the sprawling prison system - a pledge that strikes many critics today as hollow. Early in the Schwarzenegger administration, administrators vowed to reduce the inmate population by expanding rehabilitation programs. But today the system houses a record 170,000 inmates, and the governor recently proposed the construction of two prisons. State officials argue that growth in the adult inmate population is inevitable, given the increase in California's overall population. They said more prison space is needed as part of a planned expansion of rehabilitation programs. Meanwhile, the annual corrections budget has grown from $6 billion in 2004 to nearly $8 billion. "And, incredibly, the governor wants to build new jail cells," said Rose Braz, director of Critical Resistance, a penal-reform group based in Oakland. Julie Soderlund, a spokeswoman for the governor, sharply disagreed Monday night. She said the governor remains committed to reform, including resolving issues that have dogged the system for years. One of the thorniest problems is providing adequate inmate medical care. Earlier this month, a federal judge appointed an outside receiver to improve the prison system's long-troubled health care system. On a separate issue, Hickman said last year he would seek significant changes in the labor agreement with the prison guards union, the politically powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association. The union contract expires July 2 The contract includes provisions tied to guard overtime and sick leave that some say are too generous. "It's the sweetest contract you can ever imagine," said state Sen. Voluntary overtime, for example, is assigned by seniority. That drives up overtime costs because veteran guards, who areat the peak of the hourly pay scale, earn far more when they work a long day than junior officers. The contract also allows prisons to draw on a pool of reserve guards when a regular correctional officer calls in sick. These fill-in employees, however, can decline an assignment by saying they're sick and receive a full day's pay. When that happens, a prison can end up paying a handful of people sick leave to cover a single absence. Lance Corcoran, the union's chief of governmental affairs, said his organization will stand behind its hard-won rights during upcoming contract negotiations. "Anyone who thinks that we are going to go into these negotiations with our tail between our legs is sorely underestimating the will of our membership," he said. Corcoran blamed the staffing gap on mismanagement by corrections officials in Sacramento, noting the temporarysuspension of guard training classes in 2003. He believes the staffing issue has damaged guard morale, jeopardized staff safety and undermined the governor's reform drive. "When a correctional officer is tired and not very happy because they have to work overtime, the whole idea of rehabilitation goes out the window," he said. SDSU's Sutton, who regularly tours California's prisons, said the guards take their work seriously. But at the same time, he said, "many of them are even a bit giddy about what they earn." Last year, among the state's 32 adult prisons, nearly 8 percent of the guard positions on average were not filled. Among the guard vacancy rates, by facility: San Quentin State Prison, 7 percent; Prison officials are bracing for more vacancies due to a recent drop in the guard retirement age, another provision of the labor agreement. To address the shortage, prison officials recently opened a second correctional officer academy in Stockton. They plan to train as many as 3,700 guards between this summer and next. Starting pay for a state correctional officer is $39,700 a year. An analysis of state payroll data shows the average base pay last year for a guard was $57,000. California Highway Patrol officers were paid, by contrast, an average of$64,000 in base pay last year. A veteran patrol officer with the San Diego Police Department was paid an average of$69,000. Prison guards received an average of$15,000 in other pay, mostly in overtime. Thousands of guards also earned $2,400 bonuses - known as "rattlesnake pay" - if they worked in desert regions where it's tough to attract and keep employees. Add it up, and the average year-end gross pay for a stateprison guard last year was $72,000. Last year, San Quentin had the greatest number of correctional officers earning more than $100,000 - 182, or about one out of five rank-and-file guards. Donovan, with 132 guards earning more than $100,000, had the fourth highest. Centinela State Prison near El Centro had 39 earning more than $100,000. The highest-paid guard in the state last year was John L Mattingly at High Desert. Two other correctional officers received more in 2005, but their amounts included several years of back pay. Hickman, the departing state prisons chief, earned $131,000 over the same period. By mid-2007, the prison system will house a projected 172,000 inmates, further straining the work force. The proposed 2006-07 prison budge...
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