West Virginia’s jails staffing crisis continues at a very high rate, with 1,040 vacancies across the system and officials describing particularly high rates at eight locations.
“We currently have abnormally high correctional officer vacancy rates at multiple facilities,” Brad Douglass, executive officer of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told lawmakers today.
Douglass spoke before the Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization during interim legislative meetings at Marshall University in Huntington. Last month, the number of vacancies was 1,022.
Corrections officials said the highest vacancy rates are:
76 percent at Potomac Highlands Regional Jail in Augusta
56 percent at the Northern Regional Jail in Moundsville
54 percent at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg
54 percent at Vicki Douglas Juvenile Center in Martinsburg
54 percent at Huttonsville Correctional Center
50 percent at the J.M. Chick Buckbee Juvenile Center in Augusta
47 percent at Western Regional Jail in Barboursville
40 percent at Mount Olive Correctional Center in Fayette County
The overall vacancy rate for corrections officers, they said, is 33 percent. And the overall vacancy rate for all staff in the system is a little less than 30 percent.
Gov. Jim Justice declared a staffing emergency in West Virginia jails last August, allowing 300 National Guard personnel to perform support staff duties in the facilities.
During the regular legislative session, lawmakers considered but did not complete passage of at least two bills boosting pay for jail workers. Justice called for better pay for jail workers in high-cost areas during his State of the State speech, but otherwise didn’t publicly push. Since then, the governor has acted puzzled about why legislators didn’t act.
“I twice have sent bills up in regard to locality pay for our corrections officers. We didn’t get it done,” Justice said during a briefing last week, repeating the position he has taken several times.
Delegate George Miller, R-Morgan, asked today whether locality pay would help address the staffing challenges.
West Virginia Corrections Commissioner Billy Marshall said it’s been challenging to compete with salaries at neighboring states like Maryland. But he said corrections workers at facilities all across West Virginia are looking for higher pay.
“Those areas you talked about – Potomac Highlands, Eastern Regional, Huttonsville – the places where we have severe vacancies, I think the locality pay would help with those facilities. What concerns me is the other facilities that we have where people are working hard every day, and they don’t get the incentive to stay, so what’s their reason for that?” Marshall said.
“I do think it would help in those specific areas, but right now our people still have faith, they still have belief in what we’re doing. They’re holding on. I think a lot are holding on with anticipation of help going their way.”
Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, asked about pay for other workers at correctional facilities.
Douglass said the employment level for corrections officers 1 offers base pay of a little more than $33,000 a year. He said other jobs like correctional counselor one might make less, $26,000 a year. And office assistants can start at even less than that, he said.
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, asked about the challenges of keeping more experienced workers.
“We’re not able to keep people because it’s all going in on the front end. After three years, they’re relying on us to give them a raise,” Pushkin said.
The corrections commissioner agreed that a better defined pay scale would encourage longer-tenured workers to stay.
“We’ve got a 15 year sergeant who’s working his tail off, and you’ve got a brand new person coming in and making more money,” Marshall said. “There’s got to be a balance.”
Marshall also described efforts to make jobs in West Virginia’s jails more appealing in other ways, like better efforts toward safety and security.
“The money will not fix it,” he said. “It will help, but we’ve got to make the jobs better.”