For a prison guard with a take-home pay of $1,825.17 a month, the change would cost the guard an additional $186 a month to cover himself, his spouse and two children. Homer said that is before he has ever accessed the health care system. But Pitts pointed out that the health care plan for state employees is generous compared to what the state does for retired teachers or what private industry does for its employees. “There are not many industries that pay all of the employees’ coverage and half the family,” he explained.Prison guards would already get a pay cut in the House budget since a 7% pay hike authorized last session to improve employee retention would be rescinded. (The filed version of the Senate budget included the same cut, but it was restored yesterday, at least for now, by a Senate Finance subcommittee.) And COs retirement benefits are also getting cut. Now they'll be expected to pay 10% of their take-home pay on health insurance?
Grits has lately been harping on the issue of high employee turnover among prison guards and its relationship to contraband smuggling, as 4 of 5 new-boot recruits wash out and the agency loses 20% of its guards annually. What do you think turnover rates will look like once these budgetary "reforms" are passed?
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18 comments:
They are in the same boat as ALL state employees are. We all will have the same health insurance changes-not just them. We will ALL have to pay more out of our pocket for our spouses and family to be covered. We will ALL face a reduction of how much retirement is paid in by the state. And yet the state still has funded back to ERS all the money that they borrowed several years ago.
“There are not many industries that pay all of the employees’ coverage and half the family,” he explained."
What he fails to explain is health insurance through the state is not a bargain by any means. Even though I pay half of mine through my wife's employment with the state, for about 14 dollars more per month I can have my own stand alone policy through Blue Cross with a better drug plan. The only reason I don't do that is because I can save a little by having it taken out of my wife's paycheck as pre-tax dollars.
I've always wondered exactly how much the state makes by acting as "middle-man" between the insurance companies and the state employees.
9:09, that's true, but prison guards also get a 7% pay cut and have a crappier job than most state employees. I bet your state worker peers at your job don't have remotely near a 20% annual turnover rate, or lose 4 out of 5 new hires.
Retention of good employees and reduction of contraband incentives justify raising wages, but consideration of a person's lifestyle complications is not.
But there is no justification for disadvantaging a single, childfree male in favor of single mothers, couples and breeders. Indeed, such discrimination against the single childfree male is a great disincentive for them to apply for such jobs.
10% for healthcare, 7% for retirement, 20-37% in income taxes... what's left?
To answer your question Scott:
"Pitiful"!
Retired 2004
It's sad that this is happening. Our state legislators should take a pay cut, pay their own insurance, and retire with the same benefits as the rest of us. I believe all administrative positions, accross all state agencies, should take pay cuts. These poor prison guards lay their lives on the line daily. Do not judge them by the bad apples, every barrel has a few.
What I can't understand working for TDCJ is "Who is monitoring or reviewing the insurance contracts"? One state agency has a Great plan and the next one uses the same company but has a different plan that eats up a huge deductible first. Is somebody getting a kick back? Somebody needs to look into this closer. Somebody up there needs to negotiate a better plan or look elsewhere! Other companies are out there for goodness sakes!
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
I'm not ready to say that lower pay equals more smuggling of contraband. California prison guards are the highest paid and most protected (by their union) in the USA, yet tens of thousands of cell phones are confiscated there annually. Smuggling contraband (drugs, phones) into a jail or prison is a crime. Punish the offending guards as you would anyone else and you'll see the smuggling come to an end.
Johnny, I do think high turnover rates contribute to contraband more than low pay per se. When you have lots of short-timers on staff, many of whom know they're on the way out, IMO they're more likely to succumb to the temptations of quick money, etc..
The current TDCJ applicant pool comes from the same socioeconomic group as the inmates. They suffer from a lack of ability/desire to differentiate between the people they are responsible for watching on the inside and the people they associate with on the outside. The only 'wrong' in the eyes of many of them (staff AND inmate)is getting caught. They are representative of the declining moral state of our country.
Reducing the benefits paid to correctional officers is not the solution to solving the state's budget crisis. Perhaps Texans should seek a cut in pay for our legislators - afterall this is a part-time job since they only meet every 2 years. A reduction in legislator staffs and those salaries would also be a good place to start too. Perhaps close scrutiny of what legislators claim as expenses for their job and are reimbursed for is another cost saving category. I am confident that a careful review of travel, meals, and other related per diem expenses will show many legislators double-dip.
It is easy for legislators to advocate and vote for reductions in salaries, requiring employees to increase their contributions for healthcare and insurance, eliminating jobs, and such since none of those actions effect them and their kingdoms in Austin.
How about the clerk pay. It seems we are forgotten in this time of financial woes. We are the ones who push out the work and keep all the records. My bring home pay after all the deductions, health insurance included, is roughly 1300 a month. Try living on that you morons. That is after 15 years of working for the Great State OF Texas.
To add insult to injury - The way I read SB 1801 by Lucio, it looks like it proposes changing the differential multiplier called the Supplemental CPO used in calculating Correctional Officer and Peace Officer retirement under the ERS by reducing it from the current 2.8 level down to the 2.3 level that is standard for non-Correctional and Peace Officer State employees. Sadly, it does not appear to do that for just new employees in the CO or PO category, but it appears to apply to those already eligible to retire after 20 years of service, after 9/1/2011. If I am understanding the bill correctly, that would be an average drop of 10% retirement salary for an eligible 20 year employee. That will certainly not help either DPS or TDCJ in their recruiting and or retention of career minded professional employees! Hopefully the legislation will morph into something less draconian.
That pay is stunningly low for the job these people do. i am supportive of making appropriate pay cuts to public employees when they are making more than those in the private sector, and I favor having them make reasonable contributions for healthcare and retirement, but at a salary less than 2k a month there isn't much to start with.
Prison guards, PO's and the like have a tremendously difficult job under often terrible conditions. Having visited a prison in South Texas during the summer I can tell you its no picnic. I hope that they won't make the job so unpalatable that the guards aren't any better than the criminals they are in charge of.
The cut also affects probation officers in the state as well. Travis County has already told it's officers they are getting a pay cut. That's the same county that hasn't given it's workers a raise in the past four years, including having the workers re-classified by the county and still not raising their pay. Lack of raises have all coincided with their new director. If anyone cared, I'm sure there's some illegal activity going on there. That money has to be going somewhere.
To 05:15, if you are correct about that bill it will be more than a 10% pay cut on a co or cpo retirement annuity.
In my case it equaled out to be close to 700 dollars, or around 25%. That is significant. In fact, I checked to see what it would be if I retired on August 31 before this bill would take effect, and I'd be better off retiring early instead of waiting until I hit the rule of 80. I'm only 47, and have 28yrs and 10mos, so if I retire early I'll get penalized a bit. But, it would still work out better for me to retire early if they pass this bill. It would take all the incentive out of staying. And, there are many just like me in the same position. There would be a mass exodus in TDCJ, DPS, and the parole office.
Thanks for listening,
Marty Ley
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