Correctional Officers Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Jail, Prison National Guard Fill-In Worker Drawdown Beginning

Details are emerging on the plan to draw down National Guard members from their emergency work in correctional facilities around the state.

Since Gov. Jim Justice declared a State of Emergency in August 2022, hundreds of National Guard members have filled non-inmate contact posts in what was then the state’s vastly under-staffed jails and prisons. In October 2023, Corrections Commissioner William Marshall said there were between 330 and 340 Guard members filling in.

With more than 270 new jail guard recruits on-board since last October, the National Guard and the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitations said they now have ten facilities where the National Guard presence will be reduced in steps.

The National Guard, Corrections and Justice all said the goal is to have all guard members out of jail and prison work by the end of Summer 2024.

Justice first announced the drawdown in his State of the State address Wednesday. In his weekly briefing on Friday, he talked about the new corrections hires coming on.

“We are aggressively recruiting folks to be able to put them in positions,” Justice said. “People that are qualified in every way. With the pay raises and everything, we’ve got a real leg up to be able to get there as far as hiring the correctional officers.”

In a press release detailing the transition period, Human Resources staff are on site to assist any National Guard member showing a desire for long-term employment with the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The release said more than 40 National Guard members have expressed an interest in applying for Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation positions. Eight National Guard members have already secured employment during this transition.

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Prison Workers Protest Staffing Shortage

More than a dozen correctional officers, medical staff and counselors from Hazelton lined Cheat Lake Road outside of Morgantown Friday morning to demand help at Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton.

On Friday, workers from Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton in Preston County protested in Morgantown against what they call dangerously low staffing at the prison.

More than a dozen correctional officers, medical staff and counselors from Hazelton lined Cheat Lake Road outside of Morgantown Friday morning to demand help at their federal correctional complex.

Hazelton houses a correctional institution and women’s facility, as well as a high-security United States penitentiary.

Justin Tarovisky, union president of Local 420 of the American Federation of Government Employees at FCC Hazleton, said the facility has more than 80 correctional officer positions vacant, which leaves other staff like teachers and counselors to fill in the gaps in a practice called augmentation.

“We’re taking teachers away from their jobs to be augmented. We’re taking other programs, the facilities, the workers,” Tarovisky said. “They’re taking other staff that aren’t correctional officers, and they’re putting them in correctional officer spots because we’re vacated.”

Protesters say existing officers are often mandated to work 16 hour shifts several times a week. Tarovisky said the issue is further exacerbated by not having local hiring authority. He said applications to work at Hazelton are sent to a bureau of prisons office in Texas for review, and most are rejected.

“When you have a job fair in the heart of Morgantown, West Virginia with 60 applicants and hardly anyone were hired, we have a problem with our hiring,” Tarovisky said.

The shortage poses safety risks for inmates and staff alike, as well as other problems. Lucretia Row, a nurse at Hazelton, said reduced officer staffing means delays in getting inmates their medication.

“Our job is to provide treatment,” Row said. “We can’t do that, because they have to stay locked in because we don’t have staff to let them out.”

Row said many mornings the facility’s “pill line” is delayed by several hours. If inmates are put on lockdown due to low staffing, medication must be brought to each cell individually, further delaying dosage. Row highlighted the danger this poses for inmates, particularly diabetics, as it pushes morning and evening dosages closer together than is medically advised.

“That’s detrimental to things like insulin. Insulin should not be given that close together,” she said. “Not only that, they’re not getting fed in a timely manner because they’re being held in longer. It’s not just about our officer’s rights, it’s about the rights of these inmates as well. They deserve that just treatment and it’s hard on our officers to keep up with everything, because there’s so few of them.”

Staffing issues are not unique to Hazelton. Joe Rojas works at FCC Coleman in Florida, and drove up to support his fellow union members Friday.

“Working for the bureau for 29 years, this is the worst that I’ve ever seen it when it comes to staffing,” he said.

Rojas said he is concerned that reduced staffing across the country will result in serious consequences, including death. He said he doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt.

“We’re here to make the public aware of the possibilities of an escape or the possibilities of an unfortunate homicide,” he said.

In a document prepared by the American Federation of Government Employees, the union said there are currently 12,731 correctional officers in the Bureau of Prisons, down from 13,808 officers in 2020. This is despite several years of presidential requests that there be 20,466 correctional officers, and allocated funding for those positions.

Last week, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) joined with Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in calling on the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons to investigate inmate abuse and staffing shortages at FCC Hazelton.

Union members are asking the public to contact their federal representatives about the officer shortage.

W.Va. Corrections Crisis Finds Legislative Fixes, Justice Faces Corrections Lawsuit

Lawmakers say bills passed in the special session to help solve the state’s corrections employment crisis lay a foundation but are not a cure-all.

The measures come as a lawsuit demands the state spend more than 10 times the funds allocated to upgrade conditions in the state’s jails and prisons.

Three key corrections bills provide more than $25 million to increase the starting pay and change pay scales for correctional officers and offer retention payments to non-uniformed corrections workers.

SB 1005 earmarks $21.1 million to increase starting pay and change pay scales for correctional officers. SB 1003 and SB 1004 provide nearly $6 million for one-time bonuses for correctional support staff, divided into two payments that begin in October.

Del. David Kelly, R-Tyler, is the Chair of the House Jails and Prisons Committee. He said the bills create a foundation for relief and a pathway forward.

“I was pleased with the way everyone worked together,” Kelly said. “We started detailed conversations with the Senate in May, and met weekly and bi-weekly, through the months that preceded this call. We know it’s not going to solve the problem, but it’s a piece of the puzzle.”

Kelly noted that the passed legislation also includes $5,000 bonuses for critical vacancy pay, re-named from locality pay. He said the stipend will address worker shortfalls statewide.

“The Eastern Panhandle is dealing with losing officers to other states. But there are other areas that are just as in need as the Panhandle because there are different needs,” Kelly said. “It’s the same outcome, they are short officers.”

A lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday named Gov. Jim Justice and Homeland Security Secretary Mark Sorsaia as defendants. It demands the state spend $330 million for deferred maintenance and worker vacancies in state corrections. The suit asks Justice to call for a special session and submit bills correcting a number of issues to the legislature to correct these issues. The suit, filed by Beckley attorney Steve New who represents the plaintiffs who are inmates of the state, prohibits Justice and Sorsaia from housing inmates in what the suit calls “unconstitutional conditions.”

“Most troubling, is what’s called deferred maintenance in these correctional facilities,” New said. “Mr. Douglas has testified to the legislature to the point that he recently said he’s tired of sounding like a broken record when he comes before the legislature on the issue of deferred maintenance that needs done in West Virginia’s correctional facilities.”

New referred to current state Division of Corrections Chief of Staff Brad Douglas.

New noted several sworn statements that come from a separate lawsuit regarding conditions at the Southern Regional Jail. He said former state Homeland Security Secretary Jeff Sandy, former state Corrections Commissioner Betsy Jividen, and Douglas, were all frank in depositions on how severe understaffing and overcrowding conditions for more than a decade have grown worse with no government relief.

“People have testified that $50 to $60 million dollars is needed to correct the over 1000 staffing shortages in West Virginia’s corrections,” New said. “The bill only provides for $25 million. The rub is nowhere in deferred maintenance to the tune of $270 million mentioned.”

In his Tuesday media briefing, Justice said he was pleased with the outcome of the special session regarding corrections pay raises.

“To get the pay raises to the folks that we had sent up for two consecutive years,” Justice said “Basically the net of the whole thing, fix the corrections dilemma.”

In response to the lawsuit, Justice said the state is working to catch up with corrections challenges and do better.

“There’s $100 million that went into deferred maintenance in the last session,” Justice said. “Right now, we’ve got $25 million dollars, or whatever the number may be, $30 million, of stuff that’s going to corrections. Folks, right now, it can’t be absolutely dead level perfect.”

Also responding to the lawsuit, West Virginia Commissioner of Corrections and Rehabilitations Billy Marshall called it “an insult to our employees and DCR.” Marshall also said “a lot of the complaint has already come to its conclusions in regards to several of the allegations all of which have been investigated.”

He said the evidence didn’t support the claims listed in the complaint.

“We even have gone as far as having recorded inmates’ conversations that went to family members who asked those family members to lie and give false information to try to create some problems for DCR, forcing us to waste our time and money,” Marshall said.

As to jail and prison maintenance, Marshall said “It’s much like owning a home and if you live in a home long enough, there’s going to be things no matter how well you take care of it, there’s going to be things that pop up that you’re gonna need to fix and replace.”

Corrections Commissioner Details Job Vacancy Crisis To Lawmakers

There are more than 1,000 job vacancies division wide, with most facilities lacking from 40 to 70 percent of needed staff.

As a declared state of emergency continues, West Virginia’s Corrections Commissioner told lawmakers he would welcome a special legislative session on pay raises.

William Marshall, the Commissioner for the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation presented a report to members of the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority on Sunday.

Marshall began by noting that there are more than 1,000 job vacancies division wide, with most facilities lacking from 40 to 70 percent of needed staff.

“We have over 300 National Guard members that are assisting in our facilities each and every day,” They’re doing a wonderful job for us. I’m not sure what we would actually do without them right now.”

Gov. Jim Justice called on the National Guard last year to assist corrections in non-front-line duties. Marshall said the guard assistance will cost taxpayers $17 million this fiscal year.

“We welcome the possibility of a special session to hopefully address some of the pay needs for the division,” Marshall told lawmakers.

House Bill 2879 would have given correctional officers a $10,000 pay raise over three years. The bill called for an initial $5,000 raise, followed by $2,500 over the next two years, and a $6,000 one-time bonus. The current starting pay for West Virginia correctional officers is about $33,000 a year, markedly lower than comparable positions in neighboring states and federal holding facilities.

The bill passed the House Jails and Prisons Committee unanimously but died in the House Finance Committee.

Marshall said the department’s mission now highlights increased and revamped recruiting efforts. He said they have improved the website, working to better connect with younger prospective employees through social media. Corrections now offers pre-counseling for applicants who would go through the process but become intimidated by the civil service test. They have also eliminated what Marshall called the strain of a six-week academy training stay.

“That was a strain on a lot of individuals to be away for six weeks from their families,” he said. “We’ve changed that process and we’ve got them working at the facility for two weeks shadowing an individual getting the basic training there, then taking some online courses. Then they would go to the academy for four days here and there maybe even a week,”

Sen. Charles Clements, R-Wetzel, asked Marshall about a sign he sees near his home.

“I drive by the St. Mary’s correctional facilities two or three times a week,” Clements said. “A big sign out there says ‘careers start here.’ If I decide I want to become a correctional officer, I go inside – and what happens from that point on?”

Marshall responded that throughout the corrections system, there’s a new emphasis on congeniality and helpfulness.

“We’ve instructed all of our facilities to be extremely proactive,” Marshall said. “We will sit down with you right there and get on the website and get you an application filled out right then. We’ll make it as easy as we can to get on the register and try to get them hired.”

Marshall said there needs to be some sort of compromise in getting pay raises to boost not just recruitment, but retention.

“We need to land on something to show the existing officers that we’re going to reward them with a higher salary,” Marshall said. “Our retention right now is just as big as our recruiting. We’ve hired roughly 150 since the first year, but we’ve probably lost that many.”

Several committee members said they were hopeful there would be a special session to consider pay raises for all 3,800 corrections positions, not just guards. Committee Chair Del. David Kelly, R-Tyler, told Marshall the effort to get pay raises to corrections officers will continue.

“I want your people to know that we hear them,” Kelly said. “We’re trying to do what we can to get something to happen for them.”

In a statement last week, Justice says he still agrees on needed corrections pay raises and that the problem must be solved. So far though, there is no word on a special session.

House Lifts Certificate Of Need, Extends Corrections Staffing Emergency

The House passed House Concurrent Resolution 78, indefinitely extending Gov. Jim Justice’s state of emergency over correction facilities staffing levels. The concerns continue to focus on safety, security and maintaining National Guard support.

On Thursday, the House of Delegates lifted the requirement that medical facilities must show a service is needed and extended a State of Emergency for the state’s corrections system.

House Bill 613 passed with a 75-20 vote. The bill lifts certificate of need requirements for birthing centers and medical facilities on a hospital campus and allows facilities other than hospitals to perform MRI’s. Previously, medical facilities had to get state approval before offering new services.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, opposed the bill, concerned the measure would hurt more people than it helped.

“When you allow these private practices to offer these types of procedures that are really what they can bill a whole lot more with, the hospitals also will bill a whole lot more,” Pushkin said. “When they can cherry pick, and they can say, well, we’re not going to take PEIA, we’re not going to take Medicaid, we’re not going to take Medicare, we’re only gonna take private payers. The hospitals, they have to take everybody and rightfully so. Then you can run into a dangerous situation, and who will it hurt? The people who need the services because they can’t afford it.”

Del. Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, supported the bill. She said it would help her constituents with enhanced medical options.

“I live in Summersville. As you all well know, it’s about an hour commute either to Beckley, an hour and a half to Charleston, an hour and a half to Clarksburg or some of our patients even go to Elkins to get obstetrical care,” Tully said. “My hospital in my community also is interested in expanding some cancer treatment services and so that would also eliminate the travel times for patients in my area that may need cancer treatment services if those are to be implemented.

HB 613 is effective from passage and now goes to the governor for his signature.

Del. David Kelly, R-Tyler, chair of the House Jails and Prisons Committee, spoke of the continued dangerously low corrections employment rate.

“We expect to spend anywhere from $17 to $20 million this year, just to cover the cost of our National Guard. Additionally, we’re looking at $22-plus million dollars last year in overtime. And we can only expect that that number will increase this year, because we’re losing our officers almost on a daily basis,” Kelly said. “Our officers are saying I can’t do this anymore. And so I just want to share just a few things with you, if I may. As of March 2, we have 1,042 overall vacancies in DCR, that’s 27 percent. Now when we narrow that down, what we’ve got are 751 officer vacancies. That’s unconscionable. That’s 33 percent vacancies in our jails and prisons.”

The House also completed legislation on House Bill 2002, providing support for families by increasing an adoption tax credit, establishing the eligibility of adopted children of West Virginia residents for early intervention services and creating the West Virginia Mothers and Babies Pregnancy Support Program.

And they passed Senate Bill 273, which allocates child protective service workers in counties according to a county’s average caseload and population based on the 2020 Census.

The bill requires the Department of Human Services to report those changes to the legislature and have a backup system in the event of a centralized intake outage. The bill also orders the development of a merit-based system for specified employees.

Both HB 2002 and SB 273 now go to the governor for his signature.

Senate Finance Committee Quantifies Department Of Corrections Issues

Senators spent the first hour of what became a three hour Finance Committee meeting Tuesday night focusing on the budget of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state’s prisons and jails.

The Senate Finance Committee met Tuesday night to hear budget presentations from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education.

Senators spent the first hour of what became a three hour meeting focusing on the budget of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state’s prisons and jails.

Corrections have struggled since the pandemic to maintain employees, with more than 1,000 vacancies for correctional officers in the system and a state of emergency requiring National Guard intervention. During the presentation, it was reported that the National Guard’s role filling administrative positions to free up correctional officers is costing $500,000 per week, and will lead to a $6 million budgetary shortfall for the division this year.

In response to questioning, William Marshall, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told Sen. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, it would take a pay raise of at least $10,000 for all correctional officers to make the position more attractive to future candidates.

“Easy math 4,000 [officers], $10,000 across the board. That’s a $40 million annual base builder,” Nelson said. “Pension benefits can be anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent of compensation. If we were to potentially look at this correctly, would you agree that this is a $40 to $60 million base builder that we need to consider going forward?”

“You’re talking about not only base salary, but retirement?” Marshall replied. “Yes, I think a retirement plan would be very, very attractive. It’s hard. A lot of our officers we talked to, it’s hard to do that job forever.”

Marshall discussed the difficulty in retaining correctional officers not only because of the inherent risk of the job, but also because of competition from other correctional systems.

“We not only lose corrections officers to the federal system, but we also lose corrections officers to our bordering states as well,” Marshall said. “We lose a number of them to Maryland in the Eastern Panhandle quite often. They had a promotion about a year and a half ago, two years ago, with a $5,000 signing bonus and a $50,000 to $55,000 start pay.”

House Bill 2879, currently in the House’s Finance Committee, would provide existing correctional employees with three or more years of employment, a $6000 retention bonus and establish a $3000 sign-on bonus for new employees.

Marshall, with help from Executive Officer for the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Brad Douglas, explained to the senators that the state’s newest correctional facility, Lakin Correctional Center in Mason County, is already 20 years old. The oldest facility, Huttonsville Correctional Center in Randolph County, was built in 1938.

Marshall was appointed commissioner by Gov. Jim Justice two weeks ago.

Jeff Sandy, cabinet secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, fielded questions from Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley, about why there’s only $29 million in the governor’s budget to address the $200 million Corrections needs for deferred maintenance. Brian Arthur, assistant director of fiscal operations for administrative services, clarified that the $29 million is made up of $2 million that Corrections regularly receives for deferred maintenance, and a one-time allocation of $27 million to address a specific need.

“Senator, just so you’ll know, that $27 million is the locks which were broken as of late July of last year. So that does not replace every lock in corrections across the state,” Sandy said.

“What did your office request of the governor for deferred maintenance?” Barrett asked, seeking clarification.

“We have itemized what jobs need to be done: roofs, locks, etc. And the governor’s office makes the decision on what they feel the state could afford,” Sandy said.

“But you outlined that there’s $200 million in deferred maintenance?” Barrett continued.

“We have for six years sir,” Sandy said.