Tensions are mounting and morale is falling among corrections officers at the Westmoreland County Prison while a state investigation drags on, the head of the officers union said yesterday.
Don Svetkovich, president of Local 522 of the United Mine Workers of America, which represents about 130 officers at the Hempfield lockup, said the administration of Warden Kurt Scalzott is nit-picking and treating the officers like children while the county waits for state Attorney General Mike Fisher to announce the results of an investigation of operations at the prison.
The latest blow to the officers' spirit, Svetkovich said, came this week when the warden cut off their free coffee between meals.
The investigation began after agents from Fisher's office and state police raided the prison June 25 and charged an inmate with running a drug ring from his cell with the help of an officer who supplied a cell phone.
The inmate and officer plus five others were arrested. Now, the open-ended investigation has cast an air of uncertainty over the prison staff and administration about whether there will be more arrests.
That uncertainty was illustrated yesterday when county Commissioner Tom Ceraso, prison board chairman, said during the board's public meeting that there probably were people still working at the prison who should be inmates.
The board again put off asking a federal agency, the National Institute of Corrections, to review prison operations until it learns what the attorney general's investigation has found.
Ceraso said his attempts to get any information about the state investigation have been met with silence from Fisher's office.
Sheriff Chris Scherer, another member of the board, said the state investigation has put a pall of suspicion over Scalzott and other prison employees. 'In fairness to everybody, it should be resolved,' he said.
A couple of months after the raid, the prison board directed Scalzott to make a number of changes in procedures recommended by a state inspection team to beef up security, but yesterday Svetkovich said those changes have gone beyond security.
Svetkovich complained to the board that the prison is understaffed and many officers have to work double shifts, but they are no longer allowed to take coffee from the staff dining room to their officer desks.
Scalzott said the staff is provided with food and drink at mealtimes, but there is no reason the taxpayers should pay for the coffee the officers drink at other times.
But Svetkovich said the officers were working long and tiring hours because the county has not hired enough people for the job.
'What's a little coffee going to hurt?' he asked.