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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
How is it possible that overtime costs for California's prison guards alone have nearly tripled in just six years - from $53 million in 1997 to $143 million in 2003?
The answer lies in irrational management practices and equally irrational provisions in the state's contract with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union that represents prison guards. Together, these irrational elements produce costs that are out of control.
The crisis in overtime costs is, in other words, the product of problems across the California corrections system. To see why only a systemwide approach will work to fix the prisons' troubles, consider this triad of factors, some related to management and some to the contract, and how they work together to raise overtime costs.
Factor 1: Guards can't easily take days off.
Prisons don't shut down for holidays, so many prison guards work during the state's 13 holidays, such as Christmas and New Year's. Guards who work on holidays get "holiday credits," which they bank to be used in the future.
But when guards want to use this banked leave to take a day off on short notice, they are typically refused. Guards generally must request days off 30 to 90 days in advance. So the guards look for ways to get time off. And that search leads them to the second leg of the triad.
Factor 2: Sick leave.
When they can't use their leave legitimately, guards often call in sick when they want a day off for personal reasons such as attending a child's soccer game or a friend's funeral.
This is not a secret. In an April 2000 Corrections Department survey, a guard commented: "New staff are routinely told, 'If you want time off, you have to call in sick to get it.' " Another said, "Use your heads and wake up management. We only use sick leave when you leave us no other options."
The Bureau of State Audits described the problem this way in a Jan. 2000 report: "These limited opportunities for custody staff to use their accumulated leave on short notice discourages them from using leave, may contribute to low employee morale and encourages the questionable use of such leave."
The result: Sick leave use by guards in 2003 averaged 8.5 hours per guard per month - when the department budgets for 5 hours a month. (There's reason to doubt these numbers, which come from the Department of Corrections, but that's a topic for another day.)
Obviously, this is not a sensible way to run a public agency, particularly one that is so critical to public safety. But the issue with sick time goes deeper than mere questions of appropriate management. Lack of ability to take time off and resulting use of sick time are prime drivers of the third leg of the triad.
Factor 3: Use of overtime.
In a prison, when a guard calls in sick, another guard has to cover that position. There are some part-time relief guards, but regular guards also are called in from their regularly scheduled days off. They get paid overtime for filling in for a sick colleague. And the contract gives guards with the most seniority (and thus the highest salaries) first shot at any overtime, so this costs more than evenly distributing overtime across all guards.
See why guard overtime costs have risen from $53 million in 1997 to $143 million in 2003?
See why only a systemwide solution will fix the problem?
So what would such a solution look like? Let's start with the management side.
Corrections officials should make it easier to take days off and reward guards for using low amounts of sick leave. For example, the state could say any guard who has used fewer than five hours sick leave in the last month can take time off with 48 hours notice. Or assign mandatory days off - allowing management to plan for coverage ahead of time. The goal has to be to ensure that guards use all the leave they've earned each year.
In the business world, companies routinely track overtime trends weekly, monthly, yearly - and take steps when it appears overtime is busting the budget. The information to do such monitoring exists for the prison system, but isn't effectively being used as a management tool.
In 1999, then-chief of personnel automation systems Richard Krupp prepared reports for each prison, including comparisons among the state's 33 prisons on per guard holiday credit accumulations, sick leave usage and overtime dollars earned. This information was (and is) easily mined from the State Controller's Office payments database. Krupp presented these reports to the cabinet, deputy directors, regional administrators, wardens and associate wardens of business services.
Krupp had the right approach: "In theory, if California Department of Corrections were operationally sound, fiscal issues would be more likely to fall in place." Despite these presentations five years ago, the Corrections Department still has not made effective use of this information to get the triad under control.
With a new governor and new Corrections Department leadership, transforming prison management - based on real data and research - should be a top priority.
The department - and the Legislature - should begin by treating each warden like any department head, doing quarterly and annual evaluations. As managers, wardens should be making sure guards use all their leave each year and keeping sick leave and overtime within budget. The state needs wardens who are as adept at managing the business of the prison as managing the inmates.
The department should send a strong message: If you can't run the business operation, maybe you should hold the No. 2 position at the prison, not the top job.
Currently, the Corrections Department is very decentralized, with headquarters exercising very little oversight or control over the state's 33 prison facilities. When it reports to the Legislature, the department presents only overall data - never a prison-by-prison report. This needs to change. The department needs to conduct a top to bottom review of each prison and take a hard look at which prisons aren't working and why.
The governor and department leaders should move quickly to put management reforms in place. Once that is done, it will be time to tackle the issues raised by the guards' contract.
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