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Now hiring: State Corrections Department has 200 openings
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- Despite Nevada's highest-in-the-nation 12.6 percent unemployment rate, the state Department of Corrections has 200 correctional officer vacancies.
Deputy Director Sheryl Foster told the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice on Tuesday that recruiting people to fill those jobs is difficult because in rural areas, guards often quit when better-paying jobs open in mines. In urban areas, they leave to take better-paying jobs with city and county governments.
Foster said state prison pay is similar to minor league baseball farm team pay compared with pay earned in the big leagues. Annual correctional officer trainee pay in Nevada starts at $37,563. Correctional officer pay ranges between $40,862 and $60,405, depending on years of service.
Even maintenance workers in prison often leave once they are trained because they can find better-paying union maintenance jobs with cities and counties, Foster said. And because of the state budget crunch, experienced professionals such as electricians today are hired at beginning pay grades, she added.
Members of the committee, led by Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, made no comments on Foster's concern about low pay hurting the recruiting and retaining of prison workers.
State employee pay is set by the Legislature, which does not meet for another year. Committee members include Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty.
But Vishnu Subramaniam, chief of staff of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Local 4041, attributed the large number of vacancies not only to poor pay but also to a decline in morale from a 4.8 percent pay cut and reductions in health care benefits.
"You would think there would be many applicants because of the high unemployment rate, but these people are performing a very dangerous job for modest pay," he said in an interview. "How many of these extremists who complain about public employees would volunteer to work in a prison?"
He noted that two correctional officers at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center have taken their own lives in the past four months and attributed their deaths not just to personal issues but also to work stress and low morale.
While Corrections Director Greg Cox has implemented 12-hour shifts in most Northern Nevada prisons as requested by the union -- which lacks collective bargaining rights but has about 600 officers as members -- that option is not available to many Southern Nevada prison workers, Subramaniam said.
About half of the officer vacancies could be filled in the next few months because of current training classes, Foster said, but the prison system lost eight guards from the last training class in part "because they decided they did not want to work in a prison."
Thirty officers were laid off because of the recent closing of the 147-year-old Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Foster told the commission. All are eligible to fill vacancies at other prisons. If they choose not to relocate, they can take jobs at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center and conservation camps in the Carson City area when openings occur.
The old prison won't formally close until April, Foster said. The closing of the prison will save the state $15 million, she said. The 700 inmates were transferred to newer prisons where it costs less to take care of them. The average annual cost per inmate in Nevada is $20,381.
The prison system has authorization to hire 2,431 employees. It houses about 12,500 inmates.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.
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i hear alot of people saying respect for us, but yet these same people call us "prison guards" we are sworn officers of the law, we are corrections officers not guards. i have worked for n.d.o.c for 5 yrs. and make less money now then when i first started,have not gotten a raise in 4 yrs. only pay deductions,higher input into pers and higher medical,not to forget about the unpaid day off i have to take every other month. so yes i make 42,000 a yr on paper but i pay 700 a month into pers that i cant opt out of, 250 a month in medical, and 180 for my furghlo, and lets not forget federal income tax and the medicare i have to pay. to round it all up i bring home 2100 a month in take home pay. and oh ya i qualify for food stamps with this pay. i dont even want to talk about the administation. lets just say if this was a private buisness they would have been fired along tim ago. it all BAD.
be advised that the pay they say at $37,563 a year is false I am currently an employee... that is the rate before pers is taken out...currently trainees pay approx. $300 a pay check (mine is $316) MAKING THE CURRENT RATE ACTULLY AROUND $26,000 A YEAR....this pay is better than nothing but compared to Metro, Henderson, and N. Las Vegas at $54,000 a year with there PERS paid it cannot compare....
Jonny
for PT it is required..
15 inch vertical Jump
20 Pushups
Illinois Agility test in 20 sec
300m sprint in 74 seconds
and a 1.5 mile run in 17:37 (you can fast walk and jog in approx 15:00 if you are not obese or pregnant)
The mind set is what challenges you, not so much the physical, though it is a plus
Is the training available at no cost or are there fees?
I am 47, fit with martial arts experience and desire being part of a good team. Could this be a good fit for me?
cobbler.. You are right about mid-management. It is more evident with the Awo's and the Wardens, they talk to the inmates with more respect than they do the staff. Back in "the day' inmates were not allowed to follow the wardens around the yard, a COT could tell the inmate "no breezeway interviews", and the wardens knew this. It actually helped them in moving from place on the yard. Back in "the day" if an inmate didn't work or go to school, he stayed in his cell. The biggest problem I've seen in 40 years is the trend for appointing treatment staff as wardens, and not from the custody side. These people have very little grasp on the daily grind of a custody staff member, most of the Wardens are simply yes men to the Director. Most of them couldn't make a comand decision if their life depended on it, or yours for that matter. It used to be, custody ran the yard, now caseworkers do. How successful has that been? I think their record pretty much speaks for itself. Back to the mid-management point, I was once interviewed for an LT position. My interviewers were two
Sargeants, what sense did that make? It's as I said before, only we that do the job understands the job. We are a brotherhood/sisterhood! Stay strong.
The problem with the supervision is h he department values a degree (any degree) over experience. Nor does the department promote within the department as it pertains to peace officers
We can thank the rising numbers of Gangs, Drug Dealers, Murderers and Violent Criminal Illegals, for the busy turnout at the Big House. We can also thank Harrito Reid for Making Nevada a Sanctuary State for Illegals, and making this all possible.
Many people aren't able to do this job. Who in their right mind would willingly put themselves INSIDE a prison every day as a job? Note I said right mind? One has to be a few degrees off kilter to do this job. A sick sense of humor is also required as is a skin tough as leather. Not to repel the possible assault, but to be able to withstand the carnage one will be exposed to. The ability to crack a joke about an inmate who has his throat cut being turned into a pez dispenser! Working around child molesters, having read the police reports of their crime(s), and having to treat them like every one else. Listening to inmates complain about food, medical, lack of educational programs, lack of social programs, not enough yard time, chunky versus creamy peanut butter. The list goes on and on. This job wears on a person; having to wade day in and day out in the crap of our society. Someone has to do this job and I am one of those that does. I'm not asking for a pay raise in this economic time. But quit taking what we do have. Further, and maybe more important: You really want to save some money? Tell your legislators on the State and Federal level to quit coddling these criminals. Quit offering alternative meals, kosher meals, muslim meals. Get rid of the weight piles. Get serious and turn prison back into a hell hole. Inmates will work breaking boulders on down into sand. Then they'll make concrete to be used by other inmates to build something useful, like roads, or whatever. Make prison as unpleasant as possible. NOT the current country club they've become because of our courts and the various bleeding heart liberal groups.
One of the problems is mid level supervisors have no training or people skills. Trainees quit because of the way they are treated by Sergeants and LT's. Wish HR would look into that. Indian Springs has 4-5 quiting a week. One trainee left on his first day after POST. Supervisors think their job is to talk down to and not train new officers.
@ Herpes, no one cares what you think. @ EZ, Heroic men and woman do it for fun. 38K is just a bonus.