CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state Personnel Board approved a pay increase Thursday for a group of state workers who are at or near the bottom of the pay scale.
Uniform correctional officers in the state’s jails, prisons and juvenile facilities are going to get a $1 an hour raise beginning Sept. 2. That equals a $2,080 pay hike.
The raise will benefit correctional officers across the board and new hires, Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety spokesman Larry Messina said.
The money to cover the raises is coming from some unfilled positions in the agency’s existing budget.
The personnel board also approved increasing the starting pay for correctional officers from $22,584 to $24,664, representing a nine percent increase, said Elaine Harris, a representative of the Communications Workers of America/National Coalition of Public Safety Officers.
“That’s still not where we want to be with them because these jobs are tough jobs and it takes very committed people to do them and we’ll keep working on that but it’s a huge, positive step in the right direction,” Harris told MetroNews.
The last significant pay raise for correctional officers was a $5,000 increase over a three-year period beginning in 2007.
Speaking with MetroNews before the board’s vote Thursday, DMAPS Secretary Jeff Sandy said West Virginia correctional officers were the lowest paid of correctional officers in the five surrounding states.
Sandy said there are currently about 500 correctional officer vacancies and many have to work overtime.
“They will work 14-16 hour shifts, sleep on a cot (at the prison or jail) for a few hours and then come back to work,” Sandy said.
Harris said Sandy entered an order recently that will calculate overtime on 40-hours instead of 80-hours. She said that would also help.
Sandy said he’s hopeful increasing the pay will help recruitment efforts.
“We need to be able to attract college graduates from West Virginia schools with degrees in criminal justice. We need to be able to attract some of the brightest in our area,” Sandy said.
The raise covers correctional officers in classified levels one through seven. There was a 25 percent vacancy rate in the 2,640 full-time positions in classified levels one through four as of July 1, the agency said.
“A lot of work went into this action,” Sandy said. “Governor Justice supported this. He stated that we had to do something for these dedicated employees. Many correctional officers spoke to me personally about this, and I knew we had to act.”