LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Michigan Corrections Organization (MCO) is spreading the word about solutions they want enacted to address staffing shortages, but the Department of Corrections (DOC) has remained quiet as MCO continues to speak out.
The president MCO, Byron Osborn, said corrections has become a stop-and-go job, explaining that officers feel there’s no advantage to working in such a dangerous and taxing field without the appropriate pay or benefits to support themselves and their families into retirement.
This has led corrections officers to advocate for a significant increase in pay and benefits, a change Osborn said would incentivize the career, drawing in more recruits, and keeping co’s in the field.
“The types of things the officers deal with on a daily basis, this is not what you would categorize as a safe line of work. We go in there every day with the potential of loss of life or serious physical injury.” Osborn said. “It’s a necessity to have some premium type benefit packages and pay because otherwise you’re just not going to be able to attract and retain people.”
U.P. representatives Jenn Hill, Dave Prestin, and Greg Markkanen have been supportive of the proposed changes. Prestin and Markkenen spoke up in a release sent out earlier today addressing the DOC’s silence, and new legislation they say doesn’t address the true problem. Hill said legislation is in the works to secure pension benefits and pay raises.
“At the end of the day, the biggest pressure on them and their families is the income. They need the income.” Prestin said. “If we do not take action and do something. not on the margins, but something substantial that really changes the formula and the way people look at this job it’s going to get worse, to a point where it’s going to cost us far more money than if we just simply got proactive on this.”
Still, the DOC has remained mostly silent on the issue. WZMQ reached out to the DOC and director Heidi Washington on the topic but was told they would be unable to coordinate an interview.
State Senator Ed McBroom said the department has been unwilling to acknowledge pensions or increased benefits as a solution.
“Until the state takes it seriously and does something about it, I don’t see how we’re going to stop the downward spiral that we’re seeing in employment at corrections. We have an increasing problem of assaults on our state employees and among the inmates. These things just on the face cost us money. They cost the state money for medical care, workmen’s comps claims, disability, all of these other issues, but it goes beyond that.” McBroom said. “It’s just how these are basic safety issues and our state employees deserve to have these things treated like they really matter, and to have them addressed in an aggressive form.”
Corrections officers are tasked with supervising roughly 33,000 incarcerated individuals across 26 prisons in Michigan. State lawmakers said that despite the lack of support from the department, they’ll be working hard to bring relief to those individuals when they return to Lansing in September.
