CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s corrections commissioner said a state of emergency for the jails system first declared last August will need to continue.
And lawmakers on a committee overseeing the jails system say they’re still working toward recruitment and retention of jail employees, hoping that a special session could help.
“We welcome the possibility of a special session to, hopefully, address some of the pay needs for the division,” said William Marshall, commissioner of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation during a Sunday afternoon interim committee meeting.
During the regular legislative session, lawmakers considered but did not complete passage of at least two bills boosting pay for jail workers. Gov. Jim 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.
Sen. Charles Clements, R-Wetzel, asked what might prompt agreement between legislators and the executive branch to increase pay. “Do you know what it’s going to take to open that door up a little bit?”
Marshall responded, “I don’t. I just know that there needs to be some sort of compromise, I guess. We need to land on something to show the officers and the existing officers that we recognize them and we’re going to reward them with a higher salary.”
The corrections system’s current vacancies level is 1,022, Marshall told members of the Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority.
That’s a 27% vacancy rate for corrections workers across the jails system.
Eight facilities have 40% vacancies or more.
Those include Western Regional Jail, Potomac Highlands Regional Jail, Northern Regional Jail, Eastern Regional Jail, Huttonsville Correctional Center, the Vickie Douglas Juvenile Center, the J.M. Chick Buckbee Juvenile Center and the Mount Olive Correctional Center.
Eastern Regional Jail is the highest at about 70%, officials said.
More than 300 members of the National Guard are assisting in support roles in the jails, a result of the emergency declaration.
“How much longer is that going to be able to be continued?” Clements asked.
Marshall noted that the state’s emergency declaration will hit its one-year mark in mid-August and will probably need to go even longer.
“I can’t imagine that if we get some kind of pay raise that would take effect this next fiscal year — I can’t see that we would hire 350 that quickly between now and August,” Marshall said. “So we’re going to need to extend them a while longer.”
Delegate Joey Garcia, D-Marion, asked if the state is spending more money on National Guard backup than it would for pay raises.
“Yes,” Marshall responded.
Delegate David Kelly, R-Tyler, followed up, recalling that the state spent about $20 million on National Guard support this year. Kelly noted a bill that didn’t pass this past session had proposed a $10,000 across-the-board raise for uniformed officers while providing $6,000 incentive pay.
“Would that approach cost more or less than these 300 National Guard?” Kelly asked.
Marshall estimated the cost of that kind of raise likely would be more than the National Guard contribution. “I do know that to give all personnel a raise it would have been more than that,” he said.
Marshall said corrections authorities have been trying other ways to lower barriers to employment.
Those include working on strategies to make a civil service test for applicants less intimidating because a significant number have been logging on but not completing it. He also described a rebranding effort for the corrections system website, social media presence and recruitment efforts.
Kelly said key aspects of the situation can’t go on.
“Having the National Guard in there, that’s unsustainable,” he said. “And it’s also unsustainable to think we could expect we could have our officers in this state working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, week, in and week out.”
Kelly concluded that the issue is a bipartisan concern. “This is a problem for all West Virginians, and we’ve got to try to fix it,” he said. “I’m hoping that we can see a special session that would deal with just this need.”
