The News Journal
11/17/2004
For $3.7 million in new spending next year, Delaware could complete a series of pay increases for corrections officers that amounts to a 24 percent increase over two years. That should make it easier to hire and retain prison guards, top state officials said Tuesday.
Jennifer "JJ" Davis, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's budget director, said a study ordered by the General Assembly found that a 5 percent midyear raise Minner agreed to this summer and a second increase in hazard pay are needed.
Added to increases built into this year's budget, Davis said, the extra spending would raise the base salary of a starting corrections officer from $24,709 as of July 1, 2003, to $30,693 by next July.
"What really surprised me up to this point is what already has been done," Davis said.
The study group also passed along a previous task force's recommendations that guards be eligible for retirement after 25 years, rather than the current 30, and that a system be established for gradual pay increases for longevity. A 25-year retirement rule would cost $10 million a year if all state employees are included.
The union representing corrections officers, who this summer protested low pay, understaffing and other issues, said Davis' report does not go far enough.
The president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware said the report, among other shortcomings, failed to reflect the 1,500-member union's call for a separate pay plan for corrections officers and state-provided leadership training.
"The correctional officers in this state, after all this work has been done, are going to be hot," said Cpl. Allen J. Deal. "We had four of our members working on this, and what they submitted was not our work. Nothing my guys did is reflected in there at all."
The Legislature ordered Davis, Controller General Russell Larson and Personnel Director Lisa Blunt-Bradley to refine and develop cost estimates for implementing general recommendations made earlier this year by a task force convened by Minner in February 2003.
Rep. Joe Di Pinto, the co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said Tuesday he had not seen the report. Di Pinto, R-Wilmington West, said the committee had "no illusions that it was going to be able to get things done on the cheap."
"We know we've not been competitive in trying to attract the numbers of correctional officers that we need," he said. "We'll do the best we can. But clearly, we're not going to be able to give everything that people want on as quick a basis as they want it."
Davis said Minner, Larson and acting Personnel Director Dana Jefferson had signed off on $2.6 million in new spending for 5 percent raises for corrections officers, effective Jan. 1. That increase would be in keeping with a "selective market variation" study, which allows for out-of-turn salary increases for state agencies that encounter chronic problems in hiring and keeping employees.
In June, the Legislature granted a hazard pay increase of $600 a year for each corrections officer, bringing total pay for that category to $2,520. Davis said her group had endorsed a task force recommendation for $1.1 million to cover the increase for a second fiscal year.
The increases already in effect include:
• Salary bonuses of $600 to $1,000 for each state employee for fiscal 2004, which ended June 30.
• Additional supplemental increases of $600 to $1,000 for corrections employees, along with general 3 percent salary increases, for this year.
• The first-year increase for hazard pay, which like the other increases, has been built into base salaries.
Correction Commissioner Stanley W. Taylor Jr. last week requested an 8.6 percent budget increase for his department, citing the salary and benefits increases listed by Davis' group. At the time, 301 of 1,830 corrections officer jobs were unfilled, including 41 reserved for officers on active military duty. The requested increases would bring the department's budget to $211.3 million.
Taylor and his spokeswoman, Beth Welch, both were on vacation Tuesday and unavailable for comment.
Another task force is studying what might need to be done to improve prison security after a July 12 hostage crisis at Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna. A counselor was kidnapped and raped by an inmate, who was shot to death during a standoff with authorities. Its report is due Jan. 31.
Davis said that compensation improvements won by corrections officers inevitably would touch off a clamor from other state employees. Already, a union representing nonuniformed prison employees has called for hazard pay and equity on other pay and benefits.
Contact James Merriweather at 678-4273 or jmerriweather@delawareonline.com.
