The state of emergency declared last August in the West Virginia jail and prison system will need to continue past the one-year mark, the state corrections commissioner said Sunday.
Staffing shortfalls haven’t changed, and the 334 members of the West Virginia Army National Guard currently filling the vacancies will need to remain, to maintain day-to-day operations, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Commissioner William Marshall said.
“I’m not sure what we would actually do without them right now,” Marshall said Sunday during a meeting of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority at the state Capitol.
The department is seeking an extension of the state of emergency, because it is unlikely that enough correctional officers can be hired by August, Marshall said.
The cost to employ the Guard members filling out state rosters over the past year stands at $17 million, Marshall said.
Committee Co-chairman Del. David Kelly, R-Tyler, said he hopes Gov. Jim Justice will call a special legislative session to address the issue.
“I think you would agree with me that having the National Guard in there, that’s unsustainable,” Kelly said. “And it’s also unsustainable to think we could expect to have our officers in this state working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, week-in and week-out.”
Marshall said the department supports the request for a special session.
“We welcome the possibility of a special session, to hopefully address some of the pay needs for the division,” Marshall said.
The starting pay for correctional officers in West Virginia is about $33,000. A bill to raise that by $10,000 over three years did not advance out of committee during the recent legislative session.
The state has 1,022 employee vacancies in its jails and prisons, with eight facilities showing vacancy rates of 40% or more, Marshall said. The department would be fully staffed at about 3,800 personnel, he said.
“We have some that are in the 60s and 70s,” he said of the vacancy percentages.
Marshall said 729 of the vacancies are correctional officer positions. The state has hired about 150 correctional officers since January, but it has lost nearly as many.
“It’s been kind of a revolving door,” Marshall said. “It takes a special kind of individual who wants to come in and face these kinds of challenges every day.”
The department has taken numerous steps on its own to increase recruitment and retention, including streamlining the online application process and reaching out to individuals to help them through it, Marshall said.
One particular sticking point for applicants is the online civil service examination, Marshall said. Officials noticed that more than 100 applicants stopped when they reached that point in the online application.
The department has begun reaching out to applicants who stopped short of taking the test to encourage them to continue, Marshall said.
An effort also has been undertaken to “rebrand” the department by improving its website and increasing the use of social media as a recruitment tool, he said.
“The younger workforce is very social-media driven,” Marshall said. “We need to be able to get their attention, bring them in and, hopefully, they’ll come in and will want to work for us.”
The six-week correctional officer academy also proved to be a deterrent for some applicants, so the department has begun allowing newly hired officers to receive a combination of on-the-job-training and online instruction, along with academy classes, Marshall said.
While the department faces a shortage of correctional officers, the inmate population stands at more than 10,000, which is 300 over capacity, Marshall said. The majority of the overpopulation is at the North Central Regional Jail, which is 200 inmates over capacity, he said.
Additionally, there are 325 youths in the state’s juvenile facilities, Marshall said.
“That’s a high number, but it’s not really unusual,” he said. “During school time, it seems like there are more kids that will get in trouble in school and, therefore, they’ll get reported and put through the courts more often.”
The department also serves more than 400 minors at its youth reporting centers, which are alternative learning centers for students who have committed crimes and cannot attend public schools, Marshall said.
Roger Adkins covers politics. He can be reached at 304-348-4814 or email radkins@hdmediallc.com. Follow @RadkinsWV on Twitter.
