Posted on 12/23/2006 10:26:35 AM PST by BenLurkin
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- About 6,000 California corrections officers earned more than $100,000 in the last fiscal year thanks to overtime work in the strained prison system, and one brought in more than a quarter of a million.
Overtime added $220 million to the $453 million base pay for those prison workers, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. More than 900 of them earned $50,000 or more in overtime alone.
Overtime costs have soared since the officers' current labor contract took effect five years ago, rising 24 percent in the third quarter of this year compared to the same point last year, the newspaper reported.
"This business of overtime is just out of control," said Lew Uhler, president of the Sacramento-based National Tax Limitation Committee. "If you had a comparable situation in the private sector, the management would have been fired long ago."
Chuck Alexander, executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, said a shortage of officers makes the overtime necessary.
"I can't have a control booth vacant," Alexander said. "We have to fill our positions."
The biggest payout to a corrections officer for the fiscal year that ended in June was $252,570, which went to a lieutenant. That's more than the salaries of the corrections chief, who makes $225,000, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declined what would be a $206,500 paycheck this year.
Schwarzenegger has vowed to reform the nation's largest prison system, which incarcerates almost 174,000 people in 33 prisons that were designed to hold 100,000. He has announced a plan to ease crowding by building prisons, rehabilitating prisoners to cut down on repeat offenders and reviewing sentencing laws that lock up many nonviolent criminals.
And I've been working for more than five years to get a company off the ground. Haven't made a penny.
I'm a fool.
I always thought that would be a fun job. Sit around 16 hours a day, and post articles on FR, read Drudge, play Tetris, etc. ... pull in six figures. Not too shabby.
Not me -- I'd get sick of looking at all the low-life inmates.
Too bad they didn't post the retirement-package. I still believe MassPike toll-takers do better.
In the mid 80's a Sargent working at San Quentin prison who rented a room from my father (who also worked at Quentin) made more that $10,000 one month in overtime pay (and that was in the 80's). This situation has existed for a very very very long time. My father made a lot of money during his 34 year career working overtime for the CDC.
Actually, the inmates wouldn't be the biggest concern for honest correctional officers. It's the crooked correctional officers you have to be careful of.
I am sure the guy making 250k is probably close to reitrement. Since the retirement benefit is caluclated onwages earned in last three years of work, this ploy is commonly used by gov't employees to shaft the system. With three years hard wrok (ie lots of overtime), a 80 to 100k guy like the leutenant will earn probably in excess of 175k a year in retirement benefits. I was reading about a beat cop in Dallas who did this and was due to earn about twice his base pay in retirement benefits due to working huge ovetime the last three years of his career. Oh yes, he was entitled to retire with full benefits after 25 years of service, so he was not even 50 yet.
State/city employees are as big a drain on taxpayers as illegal-aliens.
You can apply at the local prison!
I blame the unions and the gubmint.
Let's start a Home Prison movement!
maybe start a penal colony on Catalina Island with a total sea blockade......let them run free, with only a well-guarded HQ compound on the island as the only gateway for residents, goods and services......the society that the inmates would create would definitely act as a deterrent to crime on the mainland. Cheap, too.
If just a small percentage of Americans took a violent felon into their homes for the length of his prison term, then the problem would be solved!
By comparison, the California Highway Patrol has about 3500 members - the same number it has a decade ago. Yet the prison guards make more, they get more overtime and they keep growing in numbers.
f just a small percentage of Americans took a violent felon into their homes for the length of his prison term, then the problem would be solved!
Yep, the violent ones should be locked up, but what percentage of the inmates are really violent and what percentage are in for not paying child support, DUI, or smoking dope. There may be better ways of handling the non violent offenders such as house arrest or parole. That way they could continue to work, pay taxes and not be a drain on the system.
Jack
I was just kidding. But warehousing people is expensive.
Well that is not the nicest safest job to do and if they can make that much with overtime then I am okay with it.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/27/INGD3KNS441.DTL
From the above article at the San Francisco Chronicle
....With a long, violent rap sheet, Blaylock was such a menace in prison that he spent much of a term for armed robbery isolated in a maximum security housing unit where he never came into contact with other inmates.
He was a man even the prison system feared.
Nonetheless, when Blaylock's term for armed robbery was up in 2002, corrections officials had no choice but to free him. After spending more than a year locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, he was back on the streets of Los Angeles.
Four months later, Blaylock fired three shots at a police officer and was eventually convicted of attempted murder. Once back in prison in Chino (San Bernardino County), he allegedly stabbed a guard to death and now faces a murder trial that could result in the death penalty. ...
...At the same time, violent criminals who are required to do nearly nothing to atone for their crimes or change their ways while in prison are released onto the streets every day with minimal supervision. Many commit serious crimes while on parole -- even homicide -- but receive relatively light sentences for parole violations instead of being charged with a new crime.
.....
Some of those on overtime probably also guarded the likes of Charlie Manson and others as violent. but perhaps not so publicized.
IMHO, it's not too surprising some of them earned that much after OT was added into their salaries, especially considering double time and holiday pay.
They ought to draft for these "hard to fill" positions and recruit everybody who is not unqualified. The same could be done for teachers and all these other jobs in which the union tries to create an artificial scarcity to command high wages.
There are a lot of prisons run by private companies that are non-union.
It takes a very particular kind of personality to be a prison guard.
It's right up the alley of military functions and training.
I was just kidding.
I sort of guessed that, but my reply was no joke, we have too many people in prison who could be punished in more cost effective ways, come to think about we have too many stupid laws that can land a person in prison. The war against drugs is a prime example. If we used one half of the money spent on the war against drugs on rehabs we would be a lot better off.
Jack
The bad thing about overtime is you have to be there to get it. It's not like their giving it away, you actually have to be at work. This is no gift, it's hard work.
I'm not venturing into the "war against drugs" swamp with you. Suffice it to say, I believe drugs to be a plague and should be fought by every means possible.
Also, science may soon have a "cure" for addiction, which should reduce the number of addicts in prison.
I work for an IT vendor dealing in Correctional systems and inmate phone systems. Overtime is a constant, I hear CO's always talking about double-shifts and OT wherever I go, regardless of the prison. Hell, I cause OT when I show up as I need an escort to pods when fixing phones these neanderthal inmates trash.
All the illegals in California prisons should be shipped back to Mexico to be housed in Meixcan prisons. Since no one will shut down the border, more criminals will be arriving hourly.
Not gonna happen. They've broken no laws in Mexico.
Also, science may soon have a "cure" for addiction, which should reduce the number of addicts in prison.
That would be one of the most important discoveries of the century!!
And yea the WOD IS a lightning rod.
So become a prison guard. What's stopping you, if you think it's such a great deal?
Personally, they haven't printed enough money yet to hire me.
It's all my fault. I was wrong and you were right. Feel better?
I've read that some are, in fact, criminals wanted in Mexico and they fled to the US.
On the other hand, from what I've heard, the way all state agency unions ran roughshod over the taxpayer under Davis and before, it doesn't surprise me that you've got guards making more than $100,000 a year.
Mark
A new employee costs us 127% of base salary. This includes benefits.
Overtime is granted by seniority giving the highest paid the first opportunity. Overtime costs 150% based upon the highest salaries.
The math is simple. Need more on-call and newer employees to fill the overtime gaps.
When I was there, I proposed we hire 5-7 new employees over the number we needed on the shift. On Friday and Saturday nights we had 5-7 call in sick per shift. Higher on holiday. You use the overhires at a lower salary to come to work and you put them were they are needed.
Projected savings per year in the millions statewide.
Not citing the source was an act of mercy. But if you insist...
Here, everybody:
At least I have enough imagination to have something on my page. If you want, you can steal my stuff, but please don't attribute it to me. I'd rather not have people think we're friends.
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