When it comes to one of Oklahomans' top concerns, public safety, the Oklahoma Legislature is all shot and no powder.
How else to explain a majority of lawmakers' refusal last week even to discuss raises for the Department of Public Safety or for corrections officers during a special session (called on another subject, tort reform)?
Lawmakers had their chance last session to boost salaries at DPS and the Department of Corrections. But seven years of bad luck - the length of time those officers have gone without a raise - did not end. Raises ended up on the cutting room floor.
And, financial slights don't end there. Since 2008, the DPS budget has suffered $10 million in cuts; the DOC budget $25 million.
Cell block blues
State prisons are dangerously understaffed. For example, the Dick Conner Correctional Center, which houses about 1,200 inmates, more than half considered violent, recently had only 80 corrections officers. The prison in Hominy is authorized for 132 positions. Typically, only one officer is assigned to a unit that holds at least 160 inmates.
Consider the odds of something going wrong and a trifecta of dangers comes to mind: risk to the general public (should there be escapes), risk to the correctional officers and risk to inmates themselves should there be a riot.
Most state prison corrections officers regularly work mandatory double shifts, some of them pulling four double shifts a week.
"They're at a breaking point," one DOC supervisor said earlier this year.
Likewise, the DPS is losing state troopers. To hire and retain officers, DPS needs to pay a competitive wage.
That is not happening.
For most law enforcement agents, their jobs are a fierce calling. But no matter how much they live for their profession that commitment doesn't pay the bills. Private sector jobs, such as working security, often pay thousands of dollars more, and are much less stressful and far safer.
Last spring more than 100 troopers showed up at the Capitol asking the Legislature to reconsider a decision not to give a law enforcement raise.
What's baffling is that the $16.3 million raise appeared a sure thing after lawmakers overwhelming approved House Bill 2145. But the raise, which would have given a trooper with one year of experience $44,352, up from $38,000, never came to be, lawmakers claiming that they didn't have the money for it.
Pay for the OHP ranks 15th in the state behind other law enforcement agencies. In recent years, OHP was not able to hold regular academies to fill vacancies. That is changing but it will take years to build back the ranks. In the meantime, the agency faces retirements and resignations. More than 210 officers are eligible for retirement, nearly a fourth of the OHP workforce.
Problems elsewhere
DOC faces even more vacancies, retention and recruitment issues. For years, there's been a revolving door - correctional officers leaving their high-risk jobs with the state for safer and sometimes better-paying positions in the private sector. Working the graveyard shift at most mini-marts might be less risky, far less stressful and more lucrative than some prison work. That's why DOC faces the constant challenge of high turnover.
Most people drawn to law enforcement work would like to make it their career. Given the hours and salary it may no longer be worth it.
The Legislature knows full well what the situation is with corrections officer and state law enforcement salaries. Other agencies, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Enforcement and Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission agents also lag behind in pay.
Most Oklahomans have strong opinions about how much government should do - the big versus limited government argument. But most Oklahomans would agree, with almost no debate, that public safety is a core government service. That service needs to be kept strong, honest and adequately compensated.
After seven years of bad luck on the salary front it is time for the Legislature to buck up and give these public servants a raise - if not now, then next session.
Julie DelCour, 918-581-8379
julie.delcour@tulsaworld.com
Julie Delcour
Someday Veronica Capobianco or Veronica Brown - whomever a judge eventually decides she is - will encounter the legacy of Oklahoma native son Jim Thorpe: football legend, Olympian and the Zeus of 20th-century American athletes.
Retired Scottsdale, Ariz., police veteran Gary Nelson tells the story of a couple who, feeling unsafe in their neighborhood, purchased a guard dog.
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