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Miss. DOC will have millions less in next budget

Commissioner says that staffing won’t get short changed

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By C1 Staff

JACKSON — Facilities in the Mississippi Department of Corrections will have to learn to make due with less next year as budget cuts loom.

FOX news reports that the DOC will have millions less to spend on necessary items in the coming year, but are working to ensure that everything fits as well as it can into the new budget.

But Commissioner Marshall Fisher says that improving the pay and training of officers isn’t an optional expense, especially with a 51 percent turnover rate.

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“We spend money getting people trained, we put ‘em to work, and then we lose ‘em because they go to higher paying jobs,” Fisher said.

He says staffing won’t get short changed and they will consider merging or consolidating some work centers.

A recent set of shakedowns revealed shanks in several prisons across the state, which the commissioner says is evidence of the dangerous nature of a correctional officer’s job.

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