Gov. Rick Scott is proposing to spend $45 million to boost salaries of corrections and probation workers, with the aim of cutting down on overtime expenses and increasing safety in the state’s troubled prison system.
The bulk of Scott’s proposal —$38 million — would increase base salaries for correctional workers.
The governor’s plan does not include across-the-board pay hikes but would offer an 8.5 percent increase for entry-level prison guards by raising starting pay from $30,926 to $33,500 a year, according to Scott spokesman McKinley Lewis.
Scott’s plan also would hike the base pay for correctional sergeants, lieutenants and captains by 10 percent, Lewis said last week, and would result in salary increases for a majority of the state’s 24,000 corrections and probation workers.
The governor’s proposal, which will be part of a full budget plan released Tuesday, also includes $5 million to allow prisons with sustained vacancy rates of more than 10 percent to offer one-time, $1,000 hiring bonuses to corrections officers, Lewis said.
In addition, Scott’s plan includes $2.5 million to hike pay for correctional officers with special certifications who work in mental-health units.
Since taking over as head of the Department of Corrections two years ago, Secretary Julie Jones has pushed lawmakers to boost funding for additional staff. Jones has blamed a rash of prison riots and spikes of violence in large part on staff turnover and manpower shortages.
The “unacceptably high vacancy rates … are negatively impacting the Department’s ability to fulfill its mission,” the agency wrote in a legislative budget request submitted in October.
The corrections agency’s turnover rate increased by 100 percent last year while overtime costs skyrocketed by more than 200 percent, according to the request.