Pay parity creates a public safety issuee

Published 9:00 pm Friday, November 15, 2002

I am writing you on behalf of correctional officers who work in prisons across Washington . My husband has worked for the Department of Corrections for almost 15 years. The work is dangerous and stressful, and yet the pay and benefits are inferior to that of other law enforcement agencies.

Salary surveys show that state correctional officers are paid between 17.8 and 20 percent less than their counterparts in the private sector. This disparity needs to be addressed by legislation granting the officers pay parity with other law enforcement agencies. Recruitment is a constant problem. DOC is one of the few state agencies that always seems to be hiring! Many correctional officer positions go vacant, resulting in increased overtime costs due to the chronic shortage of officers, and creates a potential public safety issue. We need the state to take action to bring the officers’ pay up to comparable levels and in turn put an end to the exodus of trained staff from DOC. Unfortunately, DOC has long been a training ground for other law enforcement agencies. The state spends thousands of dollars and invests months training new officers, only to have them leave as soon as their training is complete to go to work for higher wages at another agency. We need incentives to retain experienced officers. Pension reform needs to happen to allow officers to retire at age 55 after 25 years of service, as officers in other law enforcement agencies can do. In the Monroe Correctional Complex, 8 out of 10 staffers have less than two years’ experience.

The long overdue need for wage and benefit improvements for correctional officers must be addressed. This is not just an issue of money, but a much larger issue of public safety and safe working conditions for officers. Understaffed prisons are unsafe prisons.

Monroe