Legislative hearings ordered on Tennessee prison staffing, overtime


              FILE - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, and House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, meet on the podium in Senate chamber in during a floor session in Nashville, Tenn. A Nashville grand jury on Friday, Sept. 26, 2014, recommended criminal charges be filed against the speakers for failing to appoint an adequate number of women and minorities to a commission that decides whether Tennessee’s appeals judges keep their jobs. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig, file)
FILE - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, and House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, meet on the podium in Senate chamber in during a floor session in Nashville, Tenn. A Nashville grand jury on Friday, Sept. 26, 2014, recommended criminal charges be filed against the speakers for failing to appoint an adequate number of women and minorities to a commission that decides whether Tennessee’s appeals judges keep their jobs. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig, file)

NASHVILLE -- Tennessee's Senate and House speakers said Friday that legislative committees are cranking up for hearings about a guard shortage that is leaving Tennessee prisons undermanned.

Critics contend the shortage is linked to a corrections department cost-cutting overtime policy.

"Recent reports of problems at the Department of Correction are troubling to say the least," Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, the Republican Senate speaker, said in a statement. "Correction officers are committed public servants with tough and dangerous jobs. We must do all we can to ensure they are protected while at work."

Republican House Speaker Beth Harwell announced the controversy will be the topic of an Aug. 10 hearing before the House State and Local Government Committee.

"The purpose of it would be to have them in to discuss mostly prison staffing issues," said Kara Owen, Harwell's spokeswoman.

Both announcements come amid controversies over the employee overtime policies, which began phasing in a year ago at prisons across the state. Some lawmakers and employees are blaming the policies for high guard turnover. And lawmakers representing at least two prisons in rural areas say the policy has resulted in under-staffing and over-worked correctional officers.

The policy, intended to save $1.4 million annually, changed long-existing practices whereby correctional officers get overtime for work beyond 40 hours a week. The new policy changed that to a 28-day schedule or 171 hours before correctional officers get paid overtime.

Last week, two prisons were placed on lockdown following incidents of violence. One was the Northwest Tennessee Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, where eight felons were hospitalized with knife wounds amid gang tensions. Clear across the state at the Northeast Correctional Complex in Mountain City, a correctional officer was injured in an inmate encounter, details of which have yet to be disclosed publicly.

But prison officials say policies aren't the problem.

State Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield says employees are finding better-paying jobs. And all prisons are maintaining required staffing levels, he says.

Still, on Thursday, the commissioner ordered a slight change in the overtime policy.

The amount of hours worked before overtime eligibility was lowered, to 160 hours.

The department has also acknowledged 322 correctional officers have quit since last August, although officials say the department historically has had high turnover rates.

And Gov. Bill Haslam isn't putting all blame on the policy, either. And, in fact, incidents of violence are down, according to Haslam spokeswoman Laura Herzog.

"While we do have some employee vacancies, they are not across the board at all of our prisons," Herzog said in an email. "We are drilling down to find the root cause and wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it is because of the 28-day schedule. The improving economy is a part of the story."

Other law enforcement agencies use the 28-day schedule, and the state always maintains mandatory staffing leaves, Herzog said.

She added the "data shows that there has been a decrease this year of 28 percent in violent incidents compared to last year."

Some guards and lawmakers question the statistic.

Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, said guards at the West Tennessee Penitentiary located in his district tell him the department changed how it classifies assaults on guards.

Schofield disputed the assertion in December in a Times Free Press interview and continues to maintain that isn't the case.

The overtime change occurred when the state included correctional officers in the law enforcement category of employment. But critics such as Fitzhugh note guards make far less than Tennessee Highway Patrol members and other law enforcement employees. Guards did get a 5 percent pay increase this year, but Fitzhugh says the money they lose from overtime changes is greater and the base pay should have been boosted.

Starting pay for guards is about $27,000 a year, but the department says that's the highest in the Southeast.

Many complaints have been coming out of the state's Bledsoe Correctional Complex in Pikeville, north of Chattanooga, and the West Tennessee Penitentiary in Henning. Both are in rural areas.

This week, Ramsey reappointed members to the Senate State and Local Government Committee Correction Subcommittee.

"[Committee] Chairman Ken Yager and I have been in close contact on this issue and I expect his corrections subcommittee to meet very soon," Ramsey said.

Sen. Paul Bailey, R-Sparta, whose district includes the Bledsoe facility, said earlier this week he had spoken both with the prison warden and Yager about the complaints he's received and noted a hearing was planned.

Bailey said the warden told him a new group of correctional officers have now completed training and are coming online with another class of 28 soon starting.

WSMV-TV in Nashville reported that one guard at Bledsoe recently crashed his vehicle after working a double shift.

And Fitzhugh said staff at West Tennessee Penitentiary are telling him they are short between 120 to 200 guards at times.

Meanwhile, Schofield, who met with top officials with the Tennessee State Employees Association on Thursday, sought to address concerns raised in a letter Fitzhugh sent to him that questioned whether problems were related to an effort by Haslam to push for privatizing the entire state prison system.

There are no such plans, Schofield told TSEA officials in an account posted on their website.

Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550.

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