Lack of corrections officers keeps 400 beds unused in Smyrna
By JAMES MERRIWEATHER
Dover Bureau reporter
03/17/2002
In New Jersey, an 18-year-old high school graduate can earn $38,354 as an
entry-level correctional officer. A year of satisfactory service earns
designation as senior officer and a salary increase to $42,190.
His counterparts in Delaware - where vacancies have kept prison cells empty
- start at $23,833. At the discretion of the Delaware General Assembly,
officers get nominal raises as they move across and up from grade 7 of the
state's 26-grade merit system pay schedule.
The salary of that second-year officer in New Jersey is just $1,729 less
than starting correctional captain's pay - grade 15 - in Delaware.
It hardly seems fair, said Chris Carden, spokesman for the New Jersey
Department of Correction, in echoing a strongly held opinion expressed
privately by many Delaware correctional officers.
"You take a law-enforcement officer, disarm him and surround him with
dozens
of convicted criminals," Carden said. "You have to have respect for
anybody
who feels they can handle the job."
New Jersey offers by far the best starting salaries in the region and has
full staffs at each of its 15 prisons.
In Delaware, 400 of 900 new beds at Delaware Correctional Institution near
Smyrna have not been used yet for lack of 40 correctional officers. The beds
have been available since late 2000.
Delaware Correction Commissioner Stanley W. Taylor Jr. told the legislative
Joint Finance Committee in February that only 455 of 613 officers hired
since May 4, 2000, were still on the job - an attrition rate of 26 percent
over 21 months. The annual turnover rate for all officers is 7 percent, he
said.
Maintaining adequate security forces at existing facilities, Taylor said,
had been assigned priority over staffing the new cellblocks.
Since Taylor's appearance before the committee, the department has sworn in
29 new officers, and 23 cadets are scheduled to complete training on Friday.
The department also hopes to graduate 61 new officers from cadet classes set
to begin Thursday and May 30.
Spokeswoman Beth Welch estimated that the department this week had 75
vacancies throughout the system, not counting the 40 officers needed for the
unopened cellblocks.
"It's a timing thing," Welch said. "When do we want to put 20
bodies into
one of the remaining two buildings when we know we have vacancies that have
been open for some time in our other facilities?"
Rank-and-file officers would not comment for the record for fear of
undermining support for their cause among legislators and administrators.
But a representative of Teamsters Local 103 of Glen Burnie, Md., voted in
last month as the officers' new bargaining agent, said the solution to the
problem was not difficult to sort out.
"We intend to say to the state that better pay, better pensions and better
working conditions are what you need to meet your recruitment and retention
problems," said Thomas H. Ridgley, president of Local 103.
The starting salary for Delaware correctional officers is the lowest in the
region. Officers complain about being forced to work unwanted overtime and,
according to Teamsters officials, have set their sights on full pensions
after 25 or even 20 years instead of the current 30 years of service.
In Pennsylvania, starting correctional officers at 24 of 26 institutions
earn $12.45 an hour, or $25,896 a year.
"Most of our prisons are in rural areas where the economy has taken a hit,
and we have a pool of folks in most counties to choose from," said Michael
J. Lukens, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. "In
the
urban areas, there's a wider choice of job opportunities, and we see
turnover and recruitment issues. We constantly need to be out there trying
to recruit people for Graterford and Chester."
Generally, a shortage of correctional officers continues to be a national
problem.
Texas in September increased officer pay by 9.5 percent - bringing the
starting salary to $22,392 - in an effort to cut into a shortfall of 3,000
officers.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 4,349 new officers
were hired during a 10-month period that ended Sept. 1. But over the same
period, 4,631 officers quit and 700 others took promotions to other jobs or
moved to other agencies.
Sen. James Vaughn, D-Clayton, co-chairman of the legislative Joint Finance
Committee, said better pay for officers in Delaware might find legislative
favor. But their salaries could not be raised without sending ripples
throughout merit- system pay schedules.
"If you raise pay grade 7," he said, "you'd have problems all
over the other
agencies" with employees in that pay grade. And higher pay grades would
have
to be adjusted accordingly.
Vaughn, a former correction commissioner who also heads the Senate Adult and
Juvenile Corrections Committee, said he would be opposed to allowing
correctional officers to negotiate pay issues directly - a concession
already enjoyed by the Delaware State Troopers Association.
Vaughn said the best short-term approach might be increasing hazardous-duty
pay. According to Welch, that pay currently amounts to $160 a month for
correctional and probation officers and $75 a month for selected support
staff.
Typically, up to 90 percent of applicants for correctional officer jobs wash
out before reaching cadet classes. Welch cited reasons that include low test
scores, unsatisfactory interviews and negative background checks.
But she noted a series of 10 job fairs conducted from May 2000 to November
had greatly increased the number of applicants. At a job fair Saturday in
Dover, 170 candidates turned out to be tested and interviewed. Of those, 107
were recommended for hire, she said. The fairs offer an opportunity for
applicants to be offered a job in a day's time, pending background checks
and health examinations.
