A year’s bill for Arizona prison OT: $40 million
Staffing shortage remains challenge
Arizona prisons paid out more than $40 million in overtime in a single year, with nearly 91% of correctional officers working at least some extra hours, an Arizona Republic analysis has found.
In the 10 most extreme cases, correctional officers averaged the equivalent of 25 to 40 regular overtime hours a week, ultimately taking home between $37,000 and $59,000 in overtime pay. Six of those employees had a base salary of about $39,700.
The analysis, which used data from the 2017-18 budget year, illustrates the challenges of retaining officers amid a staffing crisis spurred by stagnant wages, dangerous working conditions, lengthy commutes and little supervisory support.
Corrections leaders say they’ve been forced to turn to excessive overtime despite a preference to spend money on new recruits.
In a letter attached to his final budget request, departing agency Director Chuck Ryan said the system-wide vacancy rate for correctional officers — the percentage of open officer positions — had jumped from 1.7% in July 2012 to 19% in July 2019, with the uptick presenting “imminent safety concerns to staff and inmates.”
Understaffing is worse at certain facilities, he said, such as the 37% vacancy rate at the Eyman complex.
The agency expects understaffing to get worse if correctional officers don’t see a significant salary bump soon. If that happens, the vacancy rate would climb to an estimated 22% in July 2020 and nearly 26% in July 2021.
“Existing staff can only cover a limited number of critical security posts through overtime and compensatory hours,” the budget request says, adding that “reliance on overtime contributes to fatigue, stress and burnout.”
“Ultimately, when existing staffing resources are stretched beyond their capacity, it contributes to unsafe working conditions for correctional staff, unsafe living conditions for inmates and curtails access to inmate programming.”
‘People get tired’
Ryan’s letter highlighted three reasons for persistent understaffing at state prisons.
First, his predecessor cut 565 correctional officer positions in 2006, which affected scheduling.
Second, correctional officer salaries aren’t competitive, particularly when compared to other law-enforcement agencies in the state.
Ryan said state prisons have “become a training ground” for future employees of the Maricopa County Sheriff ’s Office, which requested pre-employment background checks for 180 current or former corrections employees during the first seven months of this year.
Last, it’s not an easy career — especially when overtime hours cut into time officers need to rest and recharge. This summer, the department’s turnover rate topped 21%.
“People get tired. People get stressed,” said Jennifer Vollen-Katz, director of the John Howard Association, a Chicago-based group that monitors correctional facilities, policies and practices.
“It’s a hard job already, and for people to be there for hours on end without any relief — they’re not fresh, they’re not alert and that’s not good for anybody.”
Ryan acknowledged that understaffing Arizona prisons led to a sharp increase in assaults on both officers and inmates over the past decade.
In North Carolina, another state with severely understaffed prisons, an officer with only half the recommended backup was beaten to death in 2017. That same year, the Charlotte Observer found that 45 other officers had been fired for falling asleep at work over a five-year period.
And in Delaware, understaffing contributed to a deadly riot during which inmates took six officers and a counselor hostage.
“Working so much overtime in these kinds of positions is not good for morale, and it’s not good for safety,” VollenKatz said.
Recruitment, retention struggles
Correctional officers earn $36,208 when they start at Arizona prisons.
Andrew Wilder, a corrections spokesman, said it costs another $13,775 to recruit and train a new officer.
“The Department’s goal and desire is always to first fill Correctional Officer vacancies that occur at each prison complex,” he said via email. “Overtime is not a (cost-cutting) strategy.”
Wilder said the department posts ads on major job boards, social media and billboards along major highways to attract prospective employees.
“Active recruitment is also done through university and college job boards, local career fairs, table days at local colleges, community visits, and informational posters distributed throughout state high schools, colleges and universities, veteran organizations, non-profit organizations, apartment complexes, and more,” he said.
For his part, Gov. Doug Ducey secured a 10% pay raise for correctional officers earlier this year to improve retention. Another 5% bump is expected next year.
But officers have continued to quit. After a 12-year pay freeze, some felt the increase was too little, too late. They took jobs with better-paying law-enforcement agencies or easier commutes.
Another part of the equation
The corrections budget request for the coming year described other situations that likely contribute to officer dissatisfaction.
In some cases, prison officials meant to work in behavioral programs or reentry services are reassigned to security posts.
Supervisors frequently have to cover those posts as well, which leaves officers with little access to their direct managers.
“We’ve seen cases where (prison officials) take the GED tutor or the social work staff and put them on the cell block,” said Molly Gill, vice president at FAMM, a non-profit that advocates for a fair justice system.
“In almost all the prisons where we see abuse, neglect, poor health care, lack of rehabilitation and programming, the first thing I would say is that they don’t have enough staff. It’s a recipe for failure.”
Gill and other reformers agreed officers are “woefully underpaid.” But they said focusing all the attention on corrections staff ignores the other half of the equation: the state’s huge prison population.
Arizona has the fourth-highest incarceration rate in the country. And efforts to change strict sentencing laws, revise felony designations and provide more generous earned-release credits failed almost universally at the state Legislature this year, despite bipartisan support for reform.
Last month, state Rep. Walter Blackman, R-Snowflake, began leading an ad hoc committee on earned-release credits that will develop recommendations for “whether and how the system could be reformed” ahead of the next legislative session.
But it’s unclear whether top lawmakers will be more receptive to measures that would reduce the state’s inmate population next year.
“You do have to address this at the front end,” Gill said. “Who are we putting in prison? Do they need to be there? Do they need to be there that long?
“Arizona requires people to stay in prison so much longer than other states and is paying the price for that.”