July 24, 2013 10:30 AM UTC

GOP Senators Target Correctional Officer Salaries

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• by: kwtree

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POLS UPDATE: Joint Budget Committee leadership slams Senate Republicans on this issue in a letter today:

This letter responds to a letter dated July 19, 2013, from the Senate Republican Caucus addressed to you.  In that letter, the senators indicate concerns regarding the Colorado salary survey, specifically that it “has not been conducted according to best practices, or according to statutory requirements for determination and comparisons of total compensation.”  As evidence, they cite the salaries of private corrections employees as compared to public corrections employees, and indicate a belief that the Department does not use private prisons as data points when conducting salary surveys…

Public safety is a core mission of state government.  Prisons perform a complex and vital function and must have competent, professional and committed staff to operate safely and well.  A “race to the bottom” on corrections employee salaries would certainly diminish the safety of our prisons, increase recidivism, and potentially put workers and Coloradans at risk.  We are troubled by the discrepancy between salaries at state run and private facilities that the Senate Republicans helpfully point to, as well as the significant differences in staffing levels between the two types of institutions.  We think that reflects a problem in the private, for profit prison industry. 

We are interested in ensuring that the private prisons corporations with which the state contracts are meeting the same stated goal we have set for the state’s personnel system of providing total compensation that ensures the “recruitment, motivation and retention of a qualified and competent workforce.”

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Imagine your day as a correctional officer. You get up, put on your uniform and protective gear, and go to work in a stressful,tense environment. Your clients are incarcerated people, some of whom will be verbally abusive, many of whom are despairing, potentially violent, or dangerous. Your job is to protect the inmates from each other, help them to rehabilitate themselves, and to keep the public safe from your clients. Sound challenging? How about a 33% pay cut to sweeten the deal?

On Friday, July 19, 2013, fifteen Republican senators wrote a letter to Director of Personnel Kathy Nesbitt, proposing to change the method which determines correctional personnel salaries in Colorado.The Senators opined that the existing salary survey was flawed, because it didn’t compare public correctional officer salaries to those of workers in private for-profit prisons. If Nesbitt adopts the recommendations of the senators, it could result in a 33% pay cut for state employee prison personnel, an average pay cut of $17,000 per employee per year.

In Colorado, most of the 4000 correctional officers are unionized, on the union pay scale, and working in publicly funded prison facilities. 16% of correctional officers are working in privately owned for-profit facilities, and most of these are paid 33% less than their public-sector counterparts.

Why are these 15 senators suddenly targeting the wallets of Colorado prison guards?

Although the senators stated goal in seeking to change the salary study parameters is to avoid a “continuing detrimental effect on the state budget”, by targeting “The Department of Corrections, as the department with the most personnel in the state and most representative of the average state employee”, this claim does not stand up to investigation. Instead, the letter from the Republican Senators appears to be a pushback against a recent legislative victory by the Colorado WINS union.

Senate Bill 210, signed into law on May 24, 2013, and sponsored by Senator Angela Giron and Rep. Crisanta Duran, facilitated overtime pay for officers working double shifts, and otherwise improved inconsistent or unfair correctional officer pay and working conditions. This was a much-needed reform. The same bill repurposed Fort Lyons as a rehabilitation center for homeless veterans. Passage of SB210 is rightfully seen as a victory for the Colorado WINS union, and a legislative win for Giron and Duran.

Private prisons in Colorado are standing empty, or are partially filled.  Corrections  Corporation of America (CCA) , is Colorado’s largest private prison company. However, CCA only has a 23% “market share” of Colorado inmates, and only 16% of prison staff work in private prisons.  Incarceration in Colorado is down by a third, over the last decade, according to Imse, who credits new sentencing structures and prison policies, which allow time off for good behavior. Less incarceration for marijuana offenses may also be a factor, since the passage of amendment 64. 

This is not a friendly environment for expanding CCA's for-profit prison system in Colorado. There is simply not a need for private prison beds. Currently, CCA operates five facilities in Colorado, including facilities for juveniles and immigrants. Their continuing maintenance is seen as a support for jobs in struggling Colorado towns, where often the prison is a major employer. CCA, although limited in scope in Colorado, is extremely profitable nationwide; The company had almost 3 billion in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2013.

Therefore, since there is no need for expansion of private prisons in Colorado, and in fact some public and private prisons may be closed or repurposed, how is CCA to maintain its profitability in our state? Obviously, by cutting wages and expenses of operation. Hence, the suggested pay cut of the unionized prison staff, by the fourteen Republican Senators.

What would the Senators get out of this? Although they say that this would save the state money, in fact it will not; If 3500 prison staff people each lose $17,000 a year,  Colorado's economy would take a $60 million hit. Although CCA profits would improve, the welfare of Coloradans as a whole would decline, along with, probably, conditions and safety within Colorado prisons. The WINS letter responding to the Senators reminds them of a riot at Crowley CF, in which the low-paid private staff walked out, leaving the public workers to deal with the problem.

So if the proposed salary decrease won't save the state budget, nor improve conditions in Colorado prisons, why are the Senators recommending it? In my opinion,  intensive lobbying by CCA and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)  is the motive behind the Senator's proposal. CCA and ALEC are both extremely conservative organizations. They share a goal of expanding the for-profit prison system, and ALEC, additionally, has a goal of weakening public sector unions. Both goals are achieved by the Senator's proposal.

CCA is a corporation;  ALEC works with state legislatures all over the United States to further a conservative social agenda. ALEC creates “sample” bills which are then adapted for use in different states. Approximately 80% of CCA political contributions go to Republican and conservative legislators; 20% go to Democratic and liberal legislators. According to Colorado Common Cause's report, "Prisons and Profits: Political Expenditures of the Private Prison Industry", within Colorado, CCA has given over $200,000 to lobby for legislation to expand private prisons and weaken employee unions.

The money trail is exceedingly clear.** Special recipients of CCA largess and ALEC direction are legislators Jerou, Lambert, Baumgardner, and Brophy. Every other legislator signing the letter requesting the prison staff salary decrease has  either been working with ALEC lobbyists, or has received funds from CCA-funded PACS, or both.

Three of the signatories for the Nesbitt letter are ALEC members. (this link opens the "Prisons and Profits" pdf report. All of the signing senators have received contributions from conservative and republican PACS funded by  CCA.

The Senators attacking the paychecks of prison guards and staff are, themselves, being paid off by campaign funding from conservative political PACS, in order to weaken public employee unions, and to expand private for-profit prisons., which are ALEC  and CCA priorites .

The GOP senators are presenting this as a cost cutting measure, but it will not cut costs. There is a reason one wants well-paid, dedicated professionals to be in charge of inmates in our crowded, problematic prison system.

Taking $17,000 from the salaries of those  4000 prison guards will harm the guards and their families. It will harm Colorado’s economy. It will degrade the safety and efficiency of Colorado prisons. It will not make the public safer. It will put money into the campaign coffers of those fifteen senators, but that is hardly a public good.

Let’s keep our prisons under the care of unionized professionals.

** I'm not going to copy all of the details here, but I have used the TRACER program on the Secretary of State site to look up the committees and PACS listed in the Prisons and Profits publication, then searched for that committee, then looked for that PAC's contributions to individual legislators.) Common Cause has also detailed much of its findings on contributions in that publication.

*Corrections: My first draft of this post said that only fourteen senators signed the letter to Director Nesbitt;  Fifteen, including Senator Grantham, signed the letter.  

Main sources:

• Common Cause,  (link)“Prisons and Profits: the Political Expenditures of the Private Prison Industry in Colorado” http://bit.ly/1bYyg4L
• Colorado WINS: (link) “Colorado Senate GOP proposes slashing corrections pay by one third” Link: http://bit.ly/13z4srO  On Twitter: @CoWINSpolitics
• ·Imse, Ann: Colorado Public News Article on private prisons: “Colorado Paying Millions for Unneeded Private Prisons” (link http://bit.ly/12e0qHb )
• Sourcewatch Colorado : http://bit.ly/16XxD5T
• Prison utilization study:  http://1.usa.gov/142jWru