Bonus restored to guard who dragged teen inmate
MADISON – The on-again, off-again $2,500 bonus for a guard who dragged a teen inmate across a cell floor is back in place.
The restored bonus comes at a time when Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls remain under the spotlight. The facilities, which share a campus north of Wausau, have been under a criminal investigation for nearly three years for prisoner abuse and are the subject of multiple lawsuits — including one over the conduct of the guard who got his bonus back.
In May, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration gave a $2,500 bonus for exemplary work to Kyle Hoff, who was disciplined last year for dragging the teen inmate across the floor and two other incidents. The Department of Corrections rescinded the bonus for Hoff and four other employees in June after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked about them.
Hoff challenged having his bonus taken away with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, and the commission last month ruled in his favor.
In his ruling, commission Chairman James Daley noted three people in management had approved the bonus and determined the department had no grounds for taking it back.
“(The bonus) was granted to Hoff after a multi-step approval process. Upon payment, the award vested in him,” Daley wrote. “It was and is his property.”
Hoff did not respond to a request for comment, but union representative Michael Horecki said the matter showed the Department of Corrections didn’t follow rules and tried to take advantage of employees.
“DOC’s actions on this matter are just one among many instances of DOC demonstrating a complete disregard for existing rules,” said Horecki, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 32.
It is the latest victory for Hoff, who last year recovered $1,100 in back pay after he succeeded in having his discipline reduced.
Hoff was suspended for five days without pay last year over three inci-
dents for what the Department of Corrections at first found to be “serious misconduct.” In one incident, Hoff in June 2015 used a level of force that the department deemed “not desirable” when he
responded to an inmate who had wrapped a noose around his neck and became aggressive after it was removed.
In a second incident, a teen inmate tried to hurt herself by squeezing her head under a low-lying metal bed frame. Hoff walked on the bed frame while she was under it, putting pressure on her neck, the girl alleged in a lawsuit this summer.
In the third incident three days later, Hoff dragged the same inmate across the floor to restrain her when she became disruptive, according to department records and the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleges Hoff slammed the girl’s head against a wall, leaving a contusion on her head and laceration on her lips.
Hoff fought the discipline. The department removed the finding that he had engaged in misconduct and downgraded his punishment from a fiveday suspension to a written reprimand. The department gave him $1,100 in back pay in November 2016 for the time he was on suspension.
Six months later, in May 2017, department officials awarded him the $2,500 bonus. They took it away soon afterward, when the Journal Sentinel inquired about it, and he got it back last month when he won before the employment commission.
Four other employees had their bonuses taken away after the Journal Sentinel asked about them in June. A Department of Corrections spokesman did not say if the state planned to give them their bonuses back.
One of them was a supervisor who was demoted in February 2016 for failing to properly oversee sexual assault investigations. Another was a guard who had been reprimanded for repeating a racial slur back to an inmate.
The other two workers who had their bonuses taken away were sued this year for their response to a suicide attempt that resulted in a teen inmate becoming severely brain damaged. One of those guards also has been disciplined for roughly yanking a girl’s handcuffed hands through a slot in a cell door, records show.
“DOC’s actions on this matter are just one among many instances of DOC demonstrating a complete disregard for existing rules.” MICHAEL HORECKI AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES COUNCIL 32