Prison staffing 'on the verge of crisis'

UTAH STATE PRISON — There are Utah corrections officers who are working nearly around the clock although they are in charge of maximum security inmates

More than one quarter of all positions at the Utah State Prison are unfilled. Every day, up to 300 people are working 12 to 16 hours at a time, which means some of the most hardened criminals in the state are being supervised by officers who get to work at 5 a.m. and don't get off until 10 p.m.

"We're on the verge of crisis," says Tom Patterson, state Department of Corrections executive director. "We have to fill those spots. I worry about how long we can go at this rate. It frightens me."

Steven Turley, warden at the state's main prison in Draper, recently took the unprecedented step of "asking" every officer to voluntarily take one overtime shift a pay period.

"This is temporary life support for heaven's sake, what we're doing here," said Capt. Matthew Huber, who oversees scheduling and deployment.

With a slew of Thanksgiving Day shifts open this week, Turley will ditch the suit he wears most days for a corrections uniform and head down to the prison's Wasatch Unit to put in eight hours in the trenches.

"If I'm asking my staff to work Thanksgiving, then I have to do it myself," he said.

Salary gaps

State prison staffing is in dire straits — not just on holidays, but every day — say officials and corrections officers whose job it is to house, watch and protect the community from the state's worst lawbreakers.

Prison administrators blame low pay for the inability to attract and retain corrections officers.

Salaries are as much as $5 lower per hour than their counterparts in county jails. Starting pay at the prison is $13.73 an hour. Jails in Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties pay just under $15.50 an hour, while Utah County pays $16.58 an hour. More experience nets more money at the county level, too.

Furthermore, it costs the the prison $22,311 to train each employee — employees who then leave for higher-paying jobs in county jails, Patterson said.

The exodus has worsened the past year, said Huber. He starts drumming up volunteers three weeks in advance to fill thousands of hours of essential shifts. He e-mails local staff, then sends out an "overtime call out" statewide to bring officers in from the prison's Gunnison facility and other communities.