By Keri Blakinger
Houston Chronicle
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Amid rising turnover and vacancy rates for correctional officers, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice this week announced a sizable salary bump for new guards in the state’s 104 lock-ups.
Effective Thursday, fresh hires are now earning $36,000 per year, instead of the $32,000 they’d been getting previously. It’s all part of an ongoing effort to combat the department’s 28 percent turnover and 14 percent vacancy rates, reported on by the Chronicle in November.
But as the change only impacts a portion of the workforce, the officers’ union offered a lukewarm response to the news, calling it “a positive step” even while pushing for broader increases and a payscale that continues offering raises to longer-term employees.
“We are glad to see TCDJ working to address the ongoing understaffing and turnover issues,” said AFSCME Texas Corrections spokeswoman Tanisha Woods. “We believe that an across-the-board pay increase for all employees and extending the career ladder to reward those that have served the state for more than 8 years are necessary to fully deal with these issues.”
The department framed the change as one piece of a targeted approach to retain early career staff, and hopefully turn them into long-timers.
“The reason we’re starting to focus on the front-end of our career ladder is because we’ve identified that that is where the bulk of our losses occur within the correctional officer series,” said TDCJ Executive Director Brian Collier.
Unlike the last time prison guards saw a raise in 2015, this boost targets only new officers, which have a comparatively large turnover rate of 42 percent. And, unlike the last time, this pay hike draws on existing TDCJ funds in unilateral decision made by the department, and is not the result of a legislative appropriation.
Even though the change only impacts officers over their first eight months with the department, it’s expected to require an $8.8 million budget adjustment for the year - and it’s not immediately clear where that money will come from. If the higher pay leads to lower vacancy rates, that could eat away at the roughly $75 million in projected overtime costs for the current fiscal year.
“We’re going to look to find the funds within our existing budget and then there’s the possibility we’ll ask for a supplemental request,” said spokesman Jason Clark. He emphasized that it would not impact any services or supplies for prisoners, as the money would come out of a different part of the budget.
Better staffing levels, he said, could improve conditions by ensuring units have enough staff to offer and supervise all activities and programs.
The shift comes on the heels of a pair of high-profile incidents some blamed on understaffing and poor officer retention.
In October, news broke of an alleged confession plot between two death row prisoners, one of whom has since been executed.
“This was definitely a security breakdown,” Lance Lowry, then-union president, said at the time. “You’re playing Russian roulette when you don’t have enough security.”
Two months later, a prison teacher announced plans to sue the department after an inmate allegedly raped her at the understaffed Ferguson Unit north of Huntsville.
“This never should have happened; it could have been easily avoided,” her attorney David Lindsay said afterward."Whoever made the decision to understaff that unit, they should be held accountable.”
The department has long struggled with staffing problems, especially when the economy is strong.
“When the economy is doing well and growing is typically when we see correctional officers leave for better paying jobs,” Clark said in November. “The more rural areas tend to be more challenging, particularly in South Texas when we’ve seen an uptick in oil and gas jobs being offered.”
Until now, new officers would spend the first two months earning $2,695 a month - or $32,400 a year - in the Correctional Officer I job title and pay grade. In months three through eight, they’d advance to Correctional Officer II and take home $2,853 a month, or $34,236 a year. But now, all new officers will start at the Correctional Officer III pay grade, earning $3,019 per month, or $36,228 per year for the first 14 months.
Officers already in their first eight months of employment will see the same boost, Clark said.
But Lowry, who is no longer with the union, questioned how well the approach would work.
“I’m not gonna slam the agency for going in the right direction,” he said. “But I think it’ll only help in the short-term.”
In 2008, TDCJ bumped salaries without legislative appropriations, Clark said. In May of that year, the starting salary went from roughly $23,000 to $25,400 - and correctional officer vacancies went down from 3,428 to 1,043 in a matter of months.
Currently there are 3,652 vacancies and 22,160 filled positions.
The pay hikes aren’t a single-pronged approach. Last year the department doubled its signing bonus at certain units, and they’ve also bumped up recruitment efforts, added training academy dates and locations and increased their use of social media.
“Reducing the number of correctional officer vacancies remains a top priority for TDCJ in 2018,” Clark said. “We will continue to explore additional means by which to recruit men and women into the correctional officer ranks, and more importantly to increase retention of trained and experienced officers.”
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