Corrections-chief nominee feeling heat on Hill

Staring through the spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, the senator prepared to grill Tom Patterson.

"Tom, I'm going to cut right to the chase," barked Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan. "You've been put in a very, very precarious situation because of the audit."

"The audit" accuses the Utah Department of Corrections of operating a "good ol' boys club." It led to the governor nominating Patterson to replace executive director Scott Carver in a hasty reshuffling of corrections top brass.

Patterson appeared before the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Confirmation Committee on Monday for a confirmation hearing, where lawmakers demanded to know what Patterson was going to do to fix the problem.

"In my opinion, if you're going to implement this audit, there's people that's going to have to go," Buttars said. "My first question is, are you tough enough to let some people go?"

Patterson tried to be diplomatic.

"I think it provides valuable feedback that's got to be addressed," he told the committee. "It's also important that we don't stop at the audit, that we do a complete review of the whole organization."

Patterson acknowledged that heading the corrections department was not the career path he envisioned but found it hard to say no to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. He comes to the job from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. Carver was moved to the Utah Sentencing Commission.

The senators conceded that Patterson has thrown himself into the new job and has already been meeting and reviewing the status of his subordinates. Patterson stopped short of calling any personnel changes a "house cleaning."

"My first job and responsibility is to make sure the Department of Corrections runs in a manner that it should run, where people feel like there is fairness," he told reporters after the hearing. "That's the focus, and it may cost some jobs."

Patterson said he has been consulting with Carver on the transition and solicited input from the department's 2,400 employees asking them in a recent e-mail what works and what doesn't.

"They want to simply have their voices heard. They want to feel that they are important, and they want to have the opportunity for advancement," Patterson said. "I think that's reasonable."

Lawmakers seemed to want more.

"The thing that I am concerned about is how you will run the department," Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, said. "I am concerned about how you will deal with trained professionals, inmates and your staff."