By Joe Rogalsky,
Delaware State News
DOVER — The state’s correctional officers union released several proposals Tuesday, mostly dealing with personnel and medical issues, that its leaders hope will receive support from lawmakers when the 2006 legislative session begins next month.
“We would like the General Assembly to take a good look at these,” said Wilbur Justice, president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware.
“We have heard a lot of talk. Now we need to actually start doing something about these problems.”
Mr. Justice, an officer at the Morris Community Correction Center in Dover, said the union will first approach the chairmen of the legislature’s corrections committees — Sen. James T. Vaughn, D-Clayton, and Rep. John C. Atkins, R-Millsboro — to ask for input on their draft bills and support.
The union’s largest proposal seeks to address staffing problems plaguing the Department of Correction.
Last month, the department reported 298 vacancies out of 1,861 correctional officer positions.
COAD wants to require a two-year commitment for officers going through department training to cut down on cadets bolting to higher-paying jobs in other states and offer a $1,000 bonus to officers every five years they stay on the job.
If DOC does not reach its full staffing levels by Feb. 15, 2007, the time-and-a-half rate the agency pays officers for working overtime would increase to triple pay for a full eight-hour shift.
Smaller increases would be implemented for officers working less than a full overtime shift.
Officers have long been frustrated by being “frozen” or forced to work a second shift after their regularly scheduled one ends because of the staffing shortage.
“If you don’t have enough staff there should be some kind of bonus for working mandatory overtime,” Mr. Justice said.
“You shouldn’t have to go to work every day not knowing when you will get home.
“People have lives outside of the corrections system.”
Once DOC reaches full staffing, under the officers’ proposal, the agency could not force officers to work overtime except for emergencies.
To aid officers’ health care, COAD is proposing that the state pay for officers to have medical exams and lab tests if they are routinely exposed to infectious diseases in prisons.
The state’s prison medical care provider also would have to adopt and adhere to federal protocols for disease control in the correctional facilities or face fines.
Rep. Atkins, who heads the House’s corrections committee, said he needs to review the proposals in detail, but has had conversations with COAD about parts of the union’s plans.
“If an inmate spits on an officer, the state should pay for the doctor’s visit and any tests that are needed,” Rep. Atkins said.
“For officers working in that type of environment, their safety and their families’ safety should be the top priority.”
DOC spokeswoman Elizabeth Welch said the union has not presented its proposals to Stanley W. Taylor, the state’s corrections commissioner.
If that happens, she said, Mr. Taylor would discuss COAD’s ideas with the union’s leaders.
The proposals also include a plan to provide independent oversight of the inmate health care system, which has been called into questions by a series of newspaper articles detailing lawsuits and questionable medical decisions.
DOC pays St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services about $26 million a year to care for prisoners.
COAD wants the state to hire a health care inspector general to monitor the level of care and handle grievances prisoners lodge against medical personnel.
Instead of paying a fixed fee to a medical provider to care for inmates, the state would pay the provider’s cost plus a set percentage, under COAD’s proposal.
Several legislators have already suggested that payment system, which supporters say would discourage a provider from cutting corners to increase profits.
Ken Fields, a spokesman for Correctional Medical Services, said any oversight decisions would be left up to state officials.
“The state and local governments with whom we contract make decisions about the services they want CMS to provide,” he said.
“We are focused on meeting those needs through quality care for inmate patients.”
Staff writer Joe Rogalsky can be reached at 741-8226 or jrogalsky@newszap.com
