What is a DA's role in dictating police overtime pay?

Over the summer, Grits highlighted perverse incentives created by overtime rules in police union contracts that give officers extra pay for time they appear in court, honing in on the subject in July's Reasonably Suspicious podcast. Some officers have gamed the system to extract exorbitant amounts of overtime pay which not infrequently can exceed an officer's annual salary.

So I was interested to see in coverage of the Philadelphia DA's race this tidbit about why the local police union opposed the ultimately victorious reform candidate:

Why is [the union] so afraid to see [Larry] Krasner as Philly’s head prosectuor? Because he will lose the ability to protect “bad apples” and their overtime pay. 

According to Open Data Philly, in 2016 some police officers and detectives earned $100,000 in overtime, more than doubling their salary. The way most police officers make overtime is by appearing in court. If the DA’s office brings charges after an arrest, the cop will most likely be called to testify. In Philadelphia, every time officers appear in court off-shift, they receive a minimum of two hours of overtime pay. This is a clear financial incentive for cops to arrest as many people as possible, and might explain why in 2016 one in four pedestrian stops made by Philadelphia police was deemed unconstitutional. 

Krasner’s campaign platform pledges that he will “end this practice [stop-and-frisk] by refusing to bring to trial cases stemming from illegal frisks and searches.” McNesby’s main concern as a union representative is the compensation of FOP members. Unfortunately, those members work in a system that rewards civil rights violations. Cops who abuse civil rights to increase their salary will be hurt if Krasner is the next DA.

Your correspondent had not heretofore made the connection between local DA policies and the ability of police officers to max out overtime. Not only do cities incentivize court time through contracts, but DAs through scheduling conceivably could have an enormous impact on how much overtime a given officer makes. I hadn't considered that.

Regardless, this is evidence that officers gaming the system to maximize overtime pay for court appearances isn't just a Houston, or an Austin, or just a Texas problem, but instead is something with which many cities are struggling. They get these overly generous provisions in their contracts, then act surprised when officers behave in a way to maximize their own self interest. But the officers ultimately are not the ones to blame. Rather, those who allowed such policies to be enacted in the first place are primarily culpable for the problem. And in many cases, it can only be rectified once every few years when the union contract comes up for renewal.

Overtime for police court appearances a growing cost driver at Austin PD

Last month, a Grits post highlighted provisions in the Austin and Houston meet and confer contracts which gave police officers extra pay for time they spend testifying in court. In Houston, courts found this gave officers an incentive to make arrests on bogus DWI cases so they could make extra money - often quite a bit more than their base pay - in overtime for court appearances. And Austin's overtime pay for court appearances is even more generous.

Now, a budget response to questions by Austin Mayor Steve Adler about the drivers of overtime expenditures and police budget costs supplies light on the subject from a different angle. According to the city manager's response,

In 2016, overtime per sworn officer at APD was $11,647, up from $8,108 per officer in 2014.

Adler asked what was driving costs and overtime use at Austin PD. Looking beyond base officer pay, which in Austin steps up quickly with seniority to make them among the highest-paid officers in the state, the biggest over-time related item listed among the cost drivers was "Contract mandated Court overtime for police officers." That was the third largest item in an "other" category of cost drivers which included "Retirement" and "Health Insurance."

So, although we can't say from these data what proportion of overtime expenditures is due to court appearances (as opposed to callbacks or other, more mundane sources of overtime), overtime costs for court appearances have clearly mounted and now represent a significant sum.

Perverse incentives created by police overtime for court appearances

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last month issued an opinion in Ex Parte Mark Bowman, with a dissent from Judge Elsa Alcala, that caught Grits' eye - not because of the issues being decided in the case but thanks to the underlying fact pattern evinced in the discussion.

At issue was a 2004 DWI in Houston and whether the defense counsel was alleged to be ineffective. The evidence of counsel's ineffectiveness? Because of Houston PD overtime rules, the officer had an incentive to arrest people for DWI even if the cases were later dismissed because he received time-and-a-half for the hours he spent in court.

The officer, William Lindsey, testified that members of the DWI task force were "paid overtime, time-and-a-half" for all hours spent in court, giving him a personal financial motive to go to court whether or not an arrest is legitimate. In the prior year, he said, he'd made 476 DWI arrests.

In his habeas writ, the defendant was able to show that Officer Lindsey, from 1992 to 2004, made more money from combined overtime pay than he did from his regular salary. According to the majority opinion, "In the first eleven months of 2004 - the year of Appellant's first DWI arrest - Lindsey earned a total of $145,957, of which only $63,924 was regular salary while $82,032 was paid overtime."

For a while, Lindsey was the highest paid officer in the city. He retired after reporters began to question the situation in 2006. (See contemporary Grits coverage.)

Three criminal defense lawyers, including Doug Murphy, a DWI specialist, testified that failure to secure details about Lindsey's economic incentives amounted to ineffective assistance.  From Murphy's affidavit:

It is common knowledge among lawyers in Harris County who regularly handle DWI cases during Lindsey's tenure on the DWI Task Force that he arrested many people in affluent parts of southwest Houston - regardless of how well they performed the field sobriety tests or how sober they appeared to be on videotape - so he could obtain overtime pay for appearing in court pursuant to a subpoena to testify at their trials. Competent defense lawyers made Public Information Act requests to HPD to obtain Lindsey's payroll records before they tried DWI cases in which he would testify.

Further, wrote Mr. Murphy:

Defense lawyers would present this evidence on cross-examination to demonstrate Lindsey's motive for making the arrest. They typically would argue that Lindsey arrested sober drivers for DWI because he knew that they would go to trial and he would receive overtime pay for appearing in court to testify; that, for this reason, he gave no driver the benefit of the doubt at the scene; that, in effect, he received three days of pay for appearing at a two-day trial; that he received the money even if the defendant were acquitted; and that his overtime pay exceeded his regular pay during his tenure on the task force. Arguments of this nature frequently persuaded juries to reject Lindsey's opinion regarding intoxication.

The other two attorneys' affidavits included essentially similar comments.

A Houston Chronicle story from July 1, 2006* mentioned a "memo ... from a traffic enforcement captain warning that officers were scheming to have themselves unnecessarily placed on court dockets to inflate their overtime totals." So these allegations were coming from HPD brass, not just defense lawyers or the media.

Let's leave aside for a moment the question of whether defense counsel was ineffective, which is the focus of the two opinions. Grits instead wants to raise other questions: Is it good public policy for police officers to have an incentive to make dubious arrests so they can get overtime to show up in court? If testifying is part of a police officer's job, why can't they do it during regular work hours? Is there a way to pay for court time that doesn't contribute counterproductive incentives?

In Austin, the meet and confer agreement (Art. 8, Sec. 3) specifies particularly generous extra pay for time spent in court. For example, an officer who attends court for more than one hour prior to the start of the work day gets credit for a minimum four hours of overtime. Similarly, officers who go to court after work receive a minimum of four hours overtime no matter how long they stay there. So if an officer gets off at 5, goes to court at 5:15, and is out by 5:50, they'd be compensated for four hours at time-and-a-half.

Such pay structures give incentives for police to arrest on trumped up charges so they can justify spending time in court and making time-and-a-half. Such incentives can result in false convictions, particularly when counsel is ineffective or nonexistent. That seems like a more important takeaway for me, anyway, than the ineffective assistance questions at the heart of the debate between the judges over Mr. Bowman's habeas writ.

*No public link: Accessed via subscriber-only Houston Chronicle archives.

Pressure to raise salaries for county jailers

Competition is driving up labor costs at county jails as well as state prisons. In the next budget cycle,  according to the Abilene Reporter-News, Taylor County commissioners will likely boost jailers' pay to attract more applicants for entry-level guard spots:

Those in the county’s “public safety” matrix whose current salary is less than $30,000 will be brought up to that amount.

The decision, primarily designed to both attract new employees to the jail and help with retention of those already employed, will draw from unspent salary and — if needed — contingency funds.

“We’re having trouble retaining people because they’re going elsewhere for higher salaries,” said Sheriff Ricky Bishop after the meeting, who said he hoped that the increase would make a difference in both retention and hiring.

The starting salary for a new jailer was $27,000, a recent salary increase over the $25,300 previously paid. Commissioners said Tuesday that $30,250 is the average salary for a jailer in four counties — Tom Green, Lubbock, Brazos and Wichita — comparable to Taylor.

Chief Jail Administrator Terrie Noret told commissioners Tuesday that the jail is down 15 employees, with two set to transfer to the Taylor County Sheriff’s Department. Employees typically work in the jail before taking on patrol duties.

So if the county is lucky, higher wages will help them fill 15 positions that presently aren't drawing a salary, adding half a million or so to Taylor's jail budget. Don't hire them, and you rack up overtime while contributed to low morale and a dispirited, overworked staff. It's a less-government conservative's nightmare.

Guard shortstaffing extends to Huntsville-area prison units

Before now, state officials claimed understaffing problems at Texas prison units were limited to a handful of rural facilities located in areas where oil and gas production made it difficult to compete for low-waged workers. But a TV news report informs us that even Huntsville-area units are coming up short-staffed.

KBTX-TV reported yesterday that, "The Texas Department of Criminal Justice admits there's a statewide shortage of correctional officers. That fact is causing some local correctional officers to fear for their lives." While most of the focus on understaffing has centered on a handful of rural units, the story highlights shortages at units in the Huntsville area as well: "According to the latest records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, just the 13 prisons in the Huntsville area are more than 700 correctional officers short."

The story says, "The TDCJ says they will urge the state lawmakers to consider a pay raise for correctional officers in the next legislative session." However, save for $32 million requested to enhance the salaries of prison health care workers, pay hikes for correctional officers were not included in the 12 "exceptional items" submitted in the agency's Legislative Appropriations Request.

How big is the problem? Last month, a union official wrote to Gov. Rick Perry urging raises for correctional officers (see Grits' earlier discussion here and here), offering these data on statewide understaffing trends:

The Department of Criminal Justice currently is over 2,700 officers short, not including the 530 correctional officer positions that were eliminated by your budget cuts this last session. The prisons further have over 500 new recruits in training every month, in addition to over 1,000 employees on Family Medical Leave Status, Military Leave, extended sick leave, and leave without pay. This leaves Texas prisons with a shortage of over 4,730 officers not present at TDCJ prison facilities.

The Legislature last session behaved as though it were in collective denial on this question, cutting the budget for correctional staff, in-prison programming and prisoner health care without taking action to reduce the number of prisoners supervised. This outcome was both predictable and predicted; overstuffed, understaffed prisons are a policy choice, not mere happenstance. As such, to address the situation, the Lege ulltimately will need to make different policy choices.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• No easy fix for prison staffing shortage besides deincarceration
• Prison staff shortages and budget reality
• TDCJ can't keep rural units adequately staffed
• Staffing shortages force closure of TDCJ Connally unit wing
• Adult, juvie corrections took 39% of state employee reductions last year
• Juvie, adult prison guards atop list of high turnover state jobs
• 'As TDCJ recruiting slows, overtime usage increases'

TXDOT: Grant funds paid for overtime never worked by Dallas deputies

Dallas County will have to repay $214,000 for overtime paid to Sheriff's deputies for time they didn't work, the Dallas Observer reported. The seven officers, three of whom were fired and a fourth of whom may be soon, were being paid through a Texas Department of Transportation grant fund aimed at paying police overtime for DWI and seat belt enforcement. Grits had earlier suggested that cuts to that same grant fund were responsible for fewer traffic tickets being written by Texas police officers last year. I didn't realize some officers were just taking the money and not writing tickets anyway.

HPD cops stay on force after bilking city for nearly $1 million in overtime scheme

In a story out today titled "Four suspended HPD officers used ticket scheme to earn overtime pay," the Houston Chronicle reported:

Four veteran Houston police officers who collected nearly $1 million in overtime pay combined since 2008 were recently suspended for listing one another as witnesses on traffic tickets to help themselves get overtime for testifying in court, according to records obtained Wednesday.

From 2008 to the present, the four officers who specialize in writing tickets together were paid $943,000 in overtime, city payroll records show.

The punishments handed down Sept. 4 by Police Chief Charles McClelland range from 20 to 45 days off without pay, concluding a lengthy investigation by HPD internal affairs triggered by tickets issued in April 2011.

My question, unanswered in the story: Were they required to pay back the unearned overtime? If not, why not? Given how much money they took in through this scheme, these unpaid vacations amount to a slap on the wrist, at best.

Further, according to the Chronicle, "In one stop, an officer drove himself to the city jail where a suspect had already been taken, but listed himself as a witness to one traffic violation he did not observe, his disciplinary record noted." So where are the criminal charges for falsifying a government document, or perhaps even fraud?

A Chronicle commenter pointed out that, "Anybody else steals even one tenth that amount of money gets a lengthy jail sentence and is labeled a thief and felon for life." Another argued that, "If this happened in the private sector these guys would've been canned, had to repay the money, and possibly face fraud charges." Those seem like fair criticisms to me.

No easy fixes for Texas prison staffing shortage besides deincarceration

Soon after I left on vacation, the Texas Tribune's Emily Foxhall authored a story quoting your correspondent and others on the subject of understaffing at rural prison units operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, accompanied by this informative map highlighting the units with the worst staffing problems:

Wrote Foxhall, "Reasons abound for why the job as a correctional officer is a tough one: Pay is low, most prisons are not fully air-conditioned and inmates are not always happy to be taking orders." My question: Who thinks any of that will change any time soon? Prison guard pay was bumped up slightly two sessions ago to help with recruitment, and recently recruiting bonuses for the most understaffed units were increased from $1,500 to $3,000. But that's not enough to draw people to work at units out in BFE. State Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire has basically said more prisons would be air conditioned over his dead body. And inmates will never be "happy to be taking orders." (In truth, few people are.)

Foxhall further cited "a survey by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, in partnership with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees," which said the employee grievace process is ineffective. "About three-fourths of those surveyed said they did not find the process to be 'fair and effective'," and Duane Stuart of The Backgate website told her "that staff are hesitant to report any corruption or wrongdoing to TDCJ." (Through Grits' own various back channels and informants, I hear the same thing all the time.) Many of the new security measures aimed at reducing the flow of contraband have fallen most heavily on TDCJ employees, contributing to poor morale, and those aren't going away.

The only lawmaker quoted in the story was Sen. Whitmire, who "agreed that many prisons were built in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons." But his suggested solution doesn't inspire confidence. "Now, he said, legislators need to focus on getting Texans to pay for improvement of conditions for the workers."

However, the 2013 session almost assuredly won't result in higher pay for correctional officers (COs) because of the budget crunch, and in fact Grits expects some lawmakers to seek to cut their benefits and/or further reduce their number. There are more COs at TDCJ than any other category of state employee and even a small pay hike would have big budget implications. And unless they're ordered to provide air conditioning by the federal courts, that problem isn't going away, either.

For a variety of reasons - mostly related to failures of budgetary leadership by the last legislature - the 83rd Texas legislative session's budget debates will be dominated by how to pay for education and healthcare, with the prison and probation systems scrapping for crumbs.  With all due respect to Sen. Whitmire, anybody who claims the Legislature will "pay for improvement of conditions" for prison workers is blowing smoke. One might as well suggest the problem will be resolved through prayer for divine intervention, the way Gov. Perry two years ago called for Texans to pray for rain instead of championing a viable water plan.

Grits was quoted at the end of Foxhall's article making essentially those points, and calling for seizing the opportunity to reduce the size of the prison system:

Scott Henson, a former reporter who writes the criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast, said increased spending on prisons is unlikely.

“We’re at the complete end of that cycle that was begun 22 years ago. No one wants to foot the bill for how expensive it is,” Henson said.

Most agree that the temporary closures in Kenedy due to staffing shortages are not something to be celebrated, but Henson said that the state should continue efforts to reduce the prison population and close prisons in an intentional manner.

Even after the state closed its first prison last year, Henson said, Texas is operating more prisons than it should be.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• Prison staff shortages and budget reality
• TDCJ can't keep rural units adequately staffed
• Staffing shortages force closure of TDCJ Connally unit wing
• Adult, juvie corrections took 39% of state employee reductions last year
• Juvie, adult prison guards atop list of high turnover state jobs
• 2,000 jobs cut at TDCJ
• 'As TDCJ recruiting slows, overtime usage increases'

Prison staff shortages and budget reality

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal has a feature on a subject covered on Grits the other day titled, "Texas prison officials struggle with high turnover rate, staff shortage" (Aug. 6). The story by Aziza Musa opened:

TDCJ staffing woes growing more acute: CO departure rates up

After TDCJ closed a wing of the Connally unit because of understaffing among correctional officers (COs), Grits asked for data regarding staffing levels at other units and was sent this report from May 31 detailing staff vacancies across the agency. Correctional officer staffing at the Connally unit was lowest, but five other units were at less than 70% of full staffing as of that date:

McConnell    59.89%
Connally       59.30%
Smith            61.85%
Dalhart         67.80%
Daniel           63.17%
Ware            65.03%

These units are dangerously understaffed and operating unsustainably on overtime. Another five units were at between 70-80% of full staffing. Overall, last year TDCJ was 22.4% below the number of correctional officers budgeted. But digging a bit deeper into the numbers, TDCJ is having an even harder time retaining COs than in the past. According to the agency's FY 2011 turnover report, obtained by Grits yesterday and posted online here, COIs, or entry level staff, continued to leave the agency at a whopping 59.4% rate, roughly the same as the year before. But separations by COIIs increased last year, to 56.5%, up from 50.6% in 2010. Equally concerning, COIII's are leaving the agency at a higher rate than the previous year: One third (33.8%) left the agency in 2011 compared to 28.1% in 2010.

At those rates, that means only 17.7% of new hires at COIs make it through the process to become COIIIs, down from 20.1% in 2010. (See the correction/clarification in this update post.) And a third of COIIIs left last year as well. (People with a bachelors degree or military experience can start at COIII, so their high turnover rate also reflects folks leaving in the early part of their tenure.) In essence, out of every five COIs the agency hires, they lose (a bit more than) four of them.

More experienced COs are also leaving at slightly higher rates. Some 14.7% of COIVs left the agency in 2011 compared to 11.4% in 2010, and 10.2% of COVs left the agency, compared to 8.4% the year before. Overall, a whopping 6,124 COs left TDCJ last year, which after new hires left more than 2,500 slots unfilled.

As a commenter pointed out the other day, there's a limited pool to draw on for these jobs. Folks with significant education or skills can generally find higher paying work. And with one in 25 Texas adults in prison, jail, on probation or parole - and a much larger number having criminal records - many folks for whom TDCJ would seem like a good job from an economic standpoint aren't eligible. Plus, Texas is an urban state and most of the prisons are in rural counties, so there's a location mismatch between jobs and workers.

TDCJ has offered a one-time bonus to recruits willing to work at their most understaffed units, doubling a bonus created in 2008 for the same purpose from $1,500 to $3,000. That should help but it's a short-term fix. As of May 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean wage for Texas correctional officers stood at $34,880 - not the lowest in the region but probably not competitive enough to attract people from elsewhere. State and local governments collectively employ more than 48,000 people as guards in Texas prisons and jails, according to the BLS, giving Texas the largest number of correctional officers in the nation. One wonders whether the state has maxxed out its labor pool available to do that job in areas where units face chronic understaffing.

'As TDCJ recruiting slows, overtime usage increases'

Over at The Back Gate, Victoria Anderson has a story on a development that will aggravate the agency's budget woes titled "As TDCJ recruiting slows, overtime usage increases." She reports that:

TDCJ facilities statewide have posted dwindling numbers of Correctional Officers to staff there prisons, and there seems to be no relief in sight.  The Huntsville Correctional Training academy now trains the majority of the recruits themselves, leaving some satellite regional training facilities with little to do. TDCJ states that the Region III training facility located in Rosharon has suspended new recruit training classes and has been focusing exclusively on staff in-service classes for the past few months. That facility once held classes for new recruits numbering 90-120 employees every 6 weeks.

With budget cuts looming for the agency, and employees being laid off due to those spending cuts, the agency has slowed recruiting down to see what happens with the state budget.  In the mean time, prison facilities statewide are reporting staffing issues as administrators are having problems keeping their "priority one" duty posts filled and in compliance with agency policy.

Grits had reported earlier this spring on high turnover rates among TDCJ correctional officers, revealing via data acquired under an open records request that 80% of COs hired at the CO I level never make it to permanent CO III status. A whopping 20% of correctional officers at TDCJ left the agency in 2010, so as recruitment slows the increased overtime bill will inevitably drift inexorably upward. (The same thing is happening at the Harris County jail, writ small, where understaffing combined with overcrowding has led to massive overtime bills at the Sheriff's Office.)

If the Lege had done more this year to reduce the TDCJ prisoner population, the declining number of guards might be manageable. As it stands, it just creates an enormous, expensive, and entirely predictable clusterf&%k that exacerbates other problems at the agency.

Self-inflicted budget wounds: Police contract costs driving need for Austin library closures, new fee hikes

Criminal justice cost increases and rising fuel prices account for most of the increased expense in the proposed $620 million City of Austin budget, reports KEYE-TV:

Many of the budget increases include hiring 24 new police officers and buying 61 new cruisers. The city has also factored in the increased price of fuel, and is trying to tackle raising gas prices.

Austin's $25 million budget shortfall stems almost entirely from decisions four years ago to lavish vast raises on Austin police in their latest contract that made them the most highly paid officers in the nation. As I wrote in June:

Bottom line: Austin needed more officers over this period, but the council caved in to union demands to dramatically boost pay for those already on the force and fill gaps with overtime. That made it financially impossible to hire uniformed cops in the numbers the city should have and squeezed out other budget priorities.

The city will pay for the extra costs in this budget by closing library branches one day per week and raising fees for utilities and garbage pickup.

Myself and many others told the Austin City Council before they made these decisions in no uncertain terms that this would be the outcome - a bloated budget dominated by public safety costs that still doesn't put enough officers on the street. Now that those financial chickens have come home to roost, the city council is scurrying to identify someone, anyone else to blame when all they really need are mirrors - at least for the Mayor and others who were there at the time. Just pitiful.

What, me to blame? Austin city council gets "wake up call" on police budget crisis they knowingly caused

The debate in the Austin Statesman today over why the Austin Police Department's costs rose more than other PDs in the last decade strikes me as utterly disingenuous. Despite officials' incredulous comments, everyone quoted knows full well why Austin police cost so much - an extravagant union contract spearheaded by then Mayor Kirk Watson that made Austin police the highest paid officers in the country. Ridiculously, council members behaved as though they'd never heard this before:

"These numbers are eye-opening," City Council Member Brewster McCracken said Monday. "It is a wake-up call about a concerning budget trend."

Council Member Lee Leffingwell said he wants more information before forming an opinion about the new data, including whether the other cities had comparable growth rates.

"It would be premature to jump to any conclusions without that information," he said.

Both McCracken and Leffingwell knew years ago their support for massive police raises would cause this result. They were told, I can personally assure you. They said they didn't care. But now this news is a "wake up call"? It takes a lot of chutzpah to believe the public is stupid enough to accept that flip flop! Leffingwell in particular during his campaigns apologetically told opponents of the last police contract that he's afraid to confront the police union and feels like he must give them whatever they want to keep getting re-elected. No wonder he's asking for more "information"! The information all the rest of us have available indicates he and his colleagues are to blame.

Though I first began focusing on criminal justice policy because of a local Austin case, I pay little attention to APD policy anymore because it's just too frustrating: Our local city council has for years been in the pocket of local police union, and the liberals who tend to get elected are so scared someone will label them "soft on crime" they fall over one another to give the cops more money while opposing added accountability. Bottom line: Austin needed more officers over this period, but the council caved in to union demands to dramatically boost pay for those already on the force and fill gaps with overtime. That made it financially impossible to hire uniformed cops in the numbers the city should have and squeezed out other budget priorities. (In the same contract they gutted Austin's already weak civilian oversight of police.)

Now, though, years of pandering have come home to roost in the city budget. The Statesman reports that APD costs went up 84% over the last nine years, "while expenses in six other departments, including Dallas and San Antonio, increased 34 percent at most."

It's absurd for councilmembers to claim they didn't know these policies would make Austin lose control of its police budget - me and a couple hundred other Austinites showed up to tell them exactly what the budget impact would be, both before they approved the current union contract and the one in 2001. Indeed, I testified at city council back in 1998 to complain about high costs in Austin's very first "meet and confer" contract, particularly because, like other recent APD raises, it was bestowed with no added accountability in return. For anyone at the city to claim these numbers were unexpected beggars credibility.

Chief Art Acevedo asks the question, "Can you put a pricetag on public safety?" Well of course you can, sir! It's called "your budget." The questions before us are a) why that pricetag is so much higher for Austinites than everyone else, and b) what if any additional public safety benefit do we gain from it?

I think the answers are a) political pandering, and b) not much.

Overtime Pay for TYC Renewed: Full 2-year OT budget spent in first 2 months, now cannibalizing vacant positions

Good news for Texas Youth Commission employees: TYC yesterday reinstated overtime for Juvenile Correctional Officers (JCOs), reported the Austin Statesman ("Youth commission resumes overtime pay for guards," Nov. 28):

Extra hours worked during the past month since overtime pay was suspended will be paid in a special check to be issued by mid-December, agency officials said in a statement.

Acting Executive Director Dimitria Pope suspended overtime payments in October after top Youth Commission officials were shocked to learn that the agency had used most of its annual overtime budget in just two months. At the time, agency officials said that they could not properly track overtime payments and that they were investigating why so many extra hours had been logged.

The move angered many employees, who questioned why Pope and other Austin officials were so surprised by the cost, considering chronic understaffing in Youth Commission lockups in many parts of the state.

In the statement, the agency attributed that large overtime bill to "the shortage of juvenile corrections officers at numerous TYC facilities. ... Another factor was the lack of a uniform staff schedule throughout the institutions."

Pope said that a uniform staffing plan will be completed by early January to ensure that all overtime worked is evenly distributed among staff and to "develop strategies to work overtime more efficiently and consistently given the realities of current staff shortages."

The cost of overtime during the period it was suspended: $1.4 million, about what it was in the previous month.

The statement said that pay for all the extra overtime will come from money budgeted for staff positions that are vacant.

Three words come to mind: Gross. Fiscal. Mismanagement. Then after that, two more: Tick, tock.

When is that new conservator and permanent commissioner coming, Governor Perry? This is really getting out of hand.

OTOH, before now TYC officials claimed they didn't have a staffing crisis, and insisted at legislative hearings that they were meeting their 12-1 youth-staff ratios without difficulty and required no expanded staffing. This crisis has put the lie to that myth, and forced TYC administrators to publicly acknowledge that understaffing lies at the root of many if not most of the agency's problems. You can't fix problems you won't admit, so maybe this new revelation (known previously to everyone but the TDCJ transplants running the Youth Commission) will lead to new policies down the line that remedy the underlying problems instead of just the cosmetic ones.

That's a grim silver lining (that and the fact that TYC employees will get their overtime checks in time for Christmas). After all, the agency's problems are quite immediate, and as John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." But in the current dysfunctional environment, one begins to thank heaven for small favors.

TDCJ guard killed in car crash after working mandatory overtime

Did a Texas Department of Criminal Justice policy cost a prison guard his life when he fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from a mandatory overtime shift? This tragic news from The Back Gate shows the potential human costs to employees and the community from understaffing Texas prisons:

Officer Roy Cole was well liked by his co-workers, and even his supervisors on the Wayne Scott unit in Brazoria county. Many had great things to say about the father of one son, who leaves behind a pregnant wife. And yet through the grief many are experiencing, there remains unanswered questions.

Officer Cole, was working his day of mandatory overtime on the Scott unit that night, and he put in four extra hours per unit mandate. The Wayne Scott unit, which is like alot of TDCJ facilities, remains chronically understaffed due to the agencies ongoing staffing shortages that now top 2,800 officers.

The Backgate has learned that over a years time, there have been many more of these incidents that may be attributed towards the current staffing shortage that plagues TDCJ. Due to the shortage, officers are mandated by unit administration to work either on their off time, or after their original shifts, sometimes at a moments notice, or be subjected to disciplinary action.

Officer Cole was confirmed to be working after his original shift ended on the night he died as he drove back home some distance away from the unit.

This tragic event brings up once again the horrendous circumstances within TDCJ where officers are threatened with disciplinary action if they refuse to stay over to fill open positions on the units (emphasis added). Some employees, being single mothers, or fathers, have encountered child care issues that have forced them to quit, or be disciplined after they have had to refuse to stay over at a moments notice.

"These issues have been ongoing for years " stated one Huntsville administrator. That same administrator went on to say that even though most don't agree with the current overtime implementation plan, there seems to be no end in sight. "When Category one positions are in jeopardy of being unmanned, we have no choice" he went on to say.

Category one positions are those positions that are mandated to be manned on the units by the TDCJ staffing plans. Inmate housing areas are amoung them.

The Back Gate is right this event leaves unanswered several critical questions: How frequently had Officer Cole worked overtime recently, and did TDCJ's mandatory overtime policy contribute to his death? Are there other, similar incidents of which TDCJ is aware? Will the mandatory overtime policy change, now, or will anything be done differently to prevent this from happening again?

TDCJ's understaffing problems are longstanding and chronic, yet the Legislature plans to build many more new prison beds when there aren't enough guards for the ones we've got. Overtime should be a temporary staffing solution, not just how the agency does business. Given current trends, though, look for more understaffing and demands for COs to work overtime at TDCJ.

Why build more prisons when we can't staff the ones we've got?

The Houston Chronicle this morning finally picked up on what I've considered the biggest conundrum facing legislative proposals for new prison building - the state can't find enough guards to staff the units we have now. Reported the Chronicle ("Texas prison guard shortage raises alarm," April 15):

As leading lawmakers disagree on whether the state needs to build new prisons, Texas can't fully staff the lockups it has now.

Some warn that a chronic shortage of correctional officers poses a danger.

"There's a public safety issue with the shortage," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, Senate Criminal Justice Committee chairman and Finance Committee member. "I'm told where you need two (correctional officers), you've got one, and sometimes you have none. It means that the public is at risk of a breakout. It means you endanger corrections officers, and you potentially endanger inmates."

Finally! (See also comments at The Back Gate.) Regular readers know I've been harping on this issue for months, both at TDCJ and at local jails which also cannot find enough guards to staff their facilities. Here are a few prior related Grits posts:

• Who would staff new Texas prisons and jails?
• Some Texas prisons are only 62% staffed
• Prison guards arrested at record pace
• Screwing prison guards out of overtime short sighted
• Senate commitee weighs prisons vs. alternatives
• Dallas will hire jail guards with past drug use

Texas has the highest guard vacancy rate of any large state prison system, and the shortfall is growing steadily. The Chronicle reports that agency-wide, TDJC's staff turnover rate has increased from 20-24% since 2002. The newspaper also provided a chart with key statistics documenting staff shortfalls and their effects, which I republish here:

HELP WANTED

Percent of correctional officer positions that are vacant in the four states with the largest number of inmates in state correctional facilities.

• California: 9 percent.
• Texas: 12 percent
• Florida: 4 percent
• New York: Less than 1 percent

Texas prison units with highest correctional officer vacancy rates, as of Feb. 28:

• Dalhart: 37 percent
• Smith: 33 percent
• Coffield: 31 percent
• Beto: 31 percent
• Ferguson: 28 percent

Serious offender-on-staff assaults per 10,000 offenders:

• 2002: 3.7
• 2003: 2.9
• 2004: 3
• 2005: 3.4
• 2006: 4

Serious offender-on-offender assaults per 10,000 offenders:

• 2002: 56.5
• 2003: 64.9
• 2004: 64
• 2005: 65.4
• 2006: 65.5

Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Florida Department of Corrections, New York State Department of Correctional Services

Burka: Criminal Jurisprudence Committee "talent poor"

Paul Burka rightly says that HB 8 should have been better vetted in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. HB 8 will pass, said Texas Monthly's senior political scribe, but:

only after it has received the scrutiny it should have received in committee. Criminal Jurisprudence has every appearance of being a talent-poor committee. This bill was rushed to the floor. Smithee, Hartnett, et al are going to need to keep a close eye on the committee's work for the rest of the session.

Yow! I agree HB 8 (aka "Jessica's Law") needed better vetting, but how harsh is that?

HB 8 passed out of committee identically to the way Rep. Debbie Riddle, who is no criminal law expert, originally filed it. Chairman Peña passed it with barely a quorum present at a desk vote instead of at a regular meeting. The bill was rushed through calendars and its author was unprepared to accept any significant amendments.

Chairman Peña (or for that matter, the 7-2 Democratic majority on the committee) could have required amendments to the bill as a condition of bringing it up, or pended the bill until Riddle worked out amendments with the groups who testified against it. But he and the committee chose to vote for the law without exercising significant oversight. With hindsight, that was an obvious mistake.

Even so, "talent poor" is too derogatory - I'd have gone with "inexperienced and unproven."

I respect Chairman Peña, and I believe his committee has talent and a commitment to do the right thing. But, I thought it was a mistake to bring such a hot button issue up at the committee's first substantive meeting. With a rookie chairman and several new members, I think it would have been better to let the committee get a few less life-or-death bills under its belt before taking on the gravest possible topics.

Indeed, it was hard not to notice Peña's conspicuous absence during the debate over HB 8. He was listed as "absent" on the vote to postpone, but he was in town and attended the (amazing double overtime) UT-Texas A&M basketball game last night.

Still, it's not too late to allow any unspoken concerns lying in the hearts of committee members (even those who voted for the bill, as well as those who didn't attend the quickly called desk meeting) to surface on Monday. To her credit, Rep. Terri Hodge was the only Criminal Jurisprudence committee member to vocally criticize flaws in the bill.

This welcome delay gives the whole House a chance to come up with some amending language that will fix the worst problems with this highly politicized bill. I hope they take it. And I join Burka in hoping this committee's work doesn't have to be done on the House floor on the next controversial topic that comes their way.

See prior Grits coverage related to "Jessica's Law":

• Jessica's Law needs amending on the House floor
  
• Are child molesters rational, or not?
• Sex crimes and elderly prisoners' health costs
• The Real Cost of Jessica's Law: Deconstructing the Fiscal Note for HB 8
• 'I misremember it well: Eyewitness deficiencies
• Plenty of innocent names to attach to amendment for Jessica's Law
• Destruction of DNA evidence thwarts justice
• Innocence reforms needed to make sex offender law palatable
• House Corrections Committee: Community-based treatment more effective for sex offenders
• When tough on crime is hard on the coffers
• Victim advocates oppose sex offender enhancements
• Unintended consequence: Why the death penalty for repeat child molesters would harm children's safety