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| Overtime pushes correctional officers' pay past $100,000 in California |
| By San Jose Mercury News |
| Published: 03/08/2004 |
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Working for the state's prisons may require weeks on fire lines with inmate crews or guarding hardened criminals, but the job also has its rewards: 391 correctional officers received overtime last year that pushed their pay over $100,000. The average overtime for these six-figure wage earners was $44,700, according to a Mercury News analysis of figures obtained from the state Controller's Office. And at least 25 earned more than the corrections chief's salary. It's cases like these that have helped drive overall overtime costs to $929 million during the past four fiscal years, according to a legislative analysis. That's $388 million, or 72 percent, more than the state had planned for overtime. "The overtime wasn't because there were riots and they went on lockdown. It just seemed to be the normal operating procedure," said Sen. Byron Sher, D-San Jose, whose budget subcommittee oversees the Department of Corrections. "It's a way of life. The budgeted figures don't seem to have any reality to them." The highest-paid officer earned $154,351 in gross pay, including $92,182 in overtime. Theron Laudermill squeezed in an entire extra work year in overtime hours. He could not be reached for comment. The overtime costs are driven in part by a lucrative contract the prison officer union negotiated with former Gov. Gray Davis, and the Legislature approved. The costs are exacerbated by officers calling in sick, which accounts for the need for nearly half the current extra pay. And the resulting bill is at the heart of a struggle in Sacramento about how to maintain security in the nation's largest prison system, with 161,000 felons, but also put a tourniquet on runaway costs at a time when the state is hemorrhaging red ink. The payments provide a glimpse at the challenge facing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as he seeks to balance the state's budget. With officers expected this summer to receive a hefty raise -- possibly as much as 10 percent -- Schwarzenegger hopes to reopen the pact, partly to cut thousands of hours in overtime in the troubled $5.7 billion-a-year Department of Corrections. |
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