Correctional Officers Don’t Appear To Be The Problem

I’ve read here that some believe the union for correctional officers is a major reason for our current budget deficit in California. I’ve placed links below that are representative of typical salary descriptions.



According to one, they can make as much as $73,000 annually with benefits that look to be worth another three to five thousand per year, so let’s say on the top end about $78,000 per year. Reading through the details, most appear to make less.



According to Payscale.com the median salary is about $54,000 per annum and there is significant regional variance. The total budget currently proposed allocates about $14.5 billion for corrections and rehabilitation.



I’ll concede that the average salary for correctional officers is higher than I thought I would find, but I don’t really regard it as being especially out of line. The number is significantly higher than other law enforcement salaries, but they vary widely, again, between regions.



Of course, adding to the fun, simply dividing the total expenditure by the number of guards, we get an average of $141,000 per year. This could be because some higher ranking officers make a lot more than the average or it could be some of the screwy math that governmental agencies love so much precisely because it makes it hard to figure out where money goes. I suspect it is a little bit of both.



I’m going to dig a little more, but so far, the camp suggesting our problem is in large part due to a powerful correctional officer union taking better care of their team than the rest of us think prudent are wrong or they know something I don’t know, can’t see or have not discovered. If I am wrong, misguided or something worse, please let me know what I’m missing and where I can find the numbers. (I’d prefer you were nice about it, but if it must come at the price of calling me names or suggesting I’m stupid, I’m willing to pay it.)



The other big union in California covers a lot more jobs, with diverse average salaries. It may be more difficult to show one way or another if we are overpaying them but I’ll see what I can do.



Like everyone else, I don’t particularly like some of the heavy-handed methods used by powerful unions to manipulate governmental policy. But if we are looking for a budgetary whipping-boy to blame for our current budget position, I can’t prove it is the correctional system using the numbers I have found thus far. It appears we need to look elsewhere.



We have a real problem in California. Wasting our time blaming the wrong people is not going to solve it.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Links:



http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=The_State_of_California/Salary



http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Career_Opportunities/POR/COIndex.html



http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/CA/swzl_compresult_state_CA_LG12000016.html



http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/StateAgencyBudgets/5210/agency.html



http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_narrowbrief