[V]ermont correctional officers are consistently working large amounts of overtime, raising familiar questions about balancing the budget and burnout.
Figures from the Department of Corrections show that the officers inside Vermont’s seven prisons consistently work many hours beyond the typical 40-hour work week.
Over the last six months, correctional officers worked a collective average of 5,894 hours of overtime every two-week pay period. That averages out to approximately 11.8 hours of overtime every two weeks for each of the state’s 501 correctional officers — sometimes it’s scheduled ahead of time, sometimes it’s not.
Overtime in the state’s prisons is nothing new in Vermont, but it does play into an old question for lawmakers and state officials and others as to whether overtime hours and temporary employees — instead of hiring more full-time employees — are the best way to meet the 24-hour staffing needs of the state’s prisons.
DOC Commissioner Lisa Menard said in an email this week that she does have some concerns about how high rates of overtime could tax employees. Many correctional officers enjoy logging the overtime hours, Menard noted. She added, “there is likely a point when there is too much and if they are tired it is possible they could be less vigilant.”
“This is time away from their families, and less time away from the job,” Menard said. “These are incredibly difficult jobs.”
Though Menard was uncertain of the exact budget impact of overtime in the DOC, she did say that it is “significant.” Officers earn time-and-a-half pay for each hour they work overtime.
According to the state’s salary database, a correctional officer in 2014 typically made in the $30,000 to $40,000 salary range, with the top earner making $52,724.
Overtime often results from an unanticipated event that changes demands on staffing, Menard said — perhaps another officer gives a last minute notice for a sick day, or officers are needed to take a prisoner off-site for a hospital trip. Anecdotally, she has heard from DOC employees that overtime rates are on the rise in recent years.
Staffing of Vermont’s prisons has been on the radar of state officials and lawmakers for some time. According to the state’s database of employee payment, more than a dozen correctional officers earned more than $20,000 in overtime in 2014.
In March, the DOC delivered a legislatively requested report on correctional officer staffing to lawmakers. The study, done by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA), concluded that Vermont’s prison system needed an additional 60 employees to meet the current need.
The report went on to recommend hiring an additional 29 employees to “ensure the critical correctional posts are staffed so the facilities operate in a safe, effective, and secure manner.”
http://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2016/WorkGroups/House%20Corrections%20and%20Institutions/Department%20of%20Corrections/W~Department%20of%20Corrections~Report%20to%20the%20Legislature%20-%20DOC%20Staffing%20Study~3-12-2015.pdf
Based on the report, the DOC proposed running a pilot project to fill 30 positions for an 18-month period, but the pilot did not get approved by lawmakers this year.
In general, institutions that operate around the clock, like prisons and health care facilities, tend to use overtime at a rate higher than other parts of state government, according to Thomas Cheney, deputy commissioner of the Department of Human Resources. Road maintenance crew and emergency responders also tend to work more overtime.
Cheney said the state tries to minimize depending on overtime. The state launched a pilot program in 2014 to attempt to manage overtime, its reliance on temps and other staffing costs in the Agency of Transportation, and the Departments for Children and Families, Environmental Conservation, and Buildings and General Services. Cheney said DHR would support the expansion of the pilot.
Menard said that the DOC will likely raise the proposal for the pilot program with lawmakers again in the coming session.
“We believe that more full time staff would reduce the overtime hours and improve retention,” Menard said.
Others have concerns that the department relies too heavily on temporary officers, who do not receive the same benefits and job security that permanent correctional officers have.
Dave Bellini, Vermont State Employees’ Association president and a veteran of the DOC, has concerns about the staffing levels of the frontline DOC workers. Vermont’s prison system, he told VTDigger, “is understaffed.”
Bellini says hiring full-time officers would help in recruiting and retaining a quality staff.
The department currently employs 501 correctional officers across three tiers, according to Menard: 468 of those are permanent and 33 are temporary.
Bellina charges that temporaries are not used in other state departments, particulary in jobs visible to the public, but “because they’re behind a wall, they’re out of sight.”
Menard said that temps “serve a useful function within the department.” Originally, they were meant to fill in for permanent officers when they were on leave, but dependence on them has grown, particularly as the medical and mental health needs of Vermont’s prison population have grown more complex.
Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, chair of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, recalls that prison staffing has long been a concern.
“It’s well worth us keeping abreast and keeping tabs, but I don’t think we will ever get rid of our overtime hours,” Emmons said. “It is in the nature of running a correctional facility.”
But any changes to correctional staffing, whether hiring more permanent officers to reduce overtime or eliminating temps, depends on the state’s finances, she said.
“It revolves around budget,” Emmons said.
Overtime at Vermont’s facilities
Three times a year, Southern State Correctional Facility Superintendent Mark Potanas straps on an apron and cooks a meal, a token of his appreciation for the facility’s employees.
“I think the correctional staff in this state are the most underrated state employees,” Potanas said.
Correctional officers at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield work the most overtime of the state’s seven facilities.
Between the 102 correctional officers at the prison, they work an average of 1,389 hours of overtime every two-week period. That works out to averge of 13.6 overtime hours.
As much as possible, Potanas tries to schedule overtime shifts in advance, but emergencies arise. The high rate reflects the size of the prison — it’s the second largest in the state — as well as the complex needs of the population there, he said.
“We try, and I say try, to limit shifts to no more than 12 hours,” Potanas said. But he did acknowledge that many correctional officers appreciate the opportunity to work overtime; some will sign up for 16-hour shifts, he said.
Potanas would like to see more correctional staff at his facility. Recruiting and retention of staff can be difficult, he said. Some correctional officers commute long distances to Springfield from their homes in New Hampshire or Massachusetts.
Leaves of absence can also be a challenge, he said, noting that he recently went through a period of time when several permanent correctional officers were on leave for military deployments overseas.
Most temps at his facility either leave or become permanent staff in the first six months, he said.
Tom Giffin is the assistant superintendent at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland, which has the fewest number of overtime hours for correctional officers. That facility is currently fully staffed with 43 permanent and nine temporary correctional officers.
Giffin said that too many hours overtime can impact workers. “If you’re doing back to back doubles, it does take a toll on you.”
Overtime, he said is “a big issue, financially, for the taxpayers.”
Speaking in mid-November, Giffin said that the facility had no overtime shifts scheduled in the next two-week period. Overtime there is typically the result of unanticipated events.
Temporary officers tend to become permanent “pretty quickly,” he said. Some correctional officers are hired as permanent directly out of the five-week training program.
“We always could use more staff,” Giffin said. But, he went on, “Right now I think the staffing we have is adequate.”
