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SACRAMENTO - The price tag for prison guards' pay raises is surging to almost double the original estimates issued by the Davis administration, adding $182 million in unanticipated costs.
Figures for the escalating costs in the current and upcoming fiscal years are contained in estimates released to the Mercury News by the Department of Finance as officials were preparing for state Senate hearings today on the lucrative prison guards' union contract with the state.
When the contract was ratified by the Legislature in 2002, the Department of Finance estimated that salary increases this fiscal year would cost $60 million, but they jumped to an estimated $137 million. Likewise, in the next fiscal year, starting July 1, the increases were estimated at $129 million but now are expected to mushroom to $234 million.
The volatility of these figures is one reason the new Schwarzenegger administration, facing a $12 billion shortfall, is seeking to reopen talks on the guards' contract, as well as other state labor pacts.
State Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who is holding the hearing today on the contract, supports renegotiation. She said the original bargaining reflected ``a flawed process.'' Based on notes obtained from state officials, she contended that the Davis administration failed to protect taxpayers. ``It was all about giveaways, and the administration couldn't do enough,'' she said.
The labor pact is pegged to labor agreements of five big-city police departments and the California Highway Patrol.
The state expects the formula to result in salary increases of around 11 percent for the 2004-05 fiscal year for rank-and-file correctional officers.
H.D. Palmer, information chief for the Department of Finance, said that because those local contracts are expected to go up at a ``healthy clip,'' it ``has the effect of jacking up the costs at the state level.''
However, other state officials involved in negotiating contracts caution that the rate of salary growth could dramatically slow in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 fiscal years.
Executives with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, who were major campaign donors to former Gov. Gray Davis, are among those scheduled to testify today. Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the union, said the salary increases are not going up more than anticipated.
``Our salaries are tied to those of the California Highway Patrol,'' he said, adding that the guards' pay scale lagged behind that of the CHP at the start of the contract, ``and at the end of the contract we will still be behind.''
Working as a prison guard is often a thankless job: Inmates balk at following orders and sometimes actively resist, spitting or throwing feces at officers. Guards must stop fights when rival gangs go after each other.
But, with the state strapped for money, the labor agreement with the guards' union has been spotlighted. Last week, for instance, the Mercury News reported that 391 officers earn more than $100,000 in overtime-fueled salaries.
Steve Maviglio, who served as Davis' press secretary, said Department of Finance estimates in 2002 were made by analysts who were not ``subject to political or policy bias'' and they should have been scrutinized by the Legislature. The legislation ratifying the pact was carried by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, and received only one vote in opposition, from Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks.
Today, these cost figures will be revisited in detail at a hearing conducted by Speier and fellow Democrat Sen. Gloria Romero of Rosemead.
When the Burton bill was debated, Speier contended the administration failed to highlight that the contract was linked to local police salaries. However, at least one Senate analysis of the measure estimated the cost of the deal at more than $1 billion and noted that salary increases ``will be determined by the rate of salary growth in the five specified local agencies.''
Speier said she was troubled by the contract because the unanticipated funds going to guards' salaries could be channeled to programs that are being trimmed, such as providing in-home care to the elderly and infirm.
Speier's Senate Government Oversight Committee disclosed in documents that sick leave -- one of the forces driving millions of dollars in overtime costs -- grew between 1999 and 2003 by an average of 47 percent to 87.5 hours, or more than two full weeks per officer each year.
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