hmmmm.... it costs the state of arizona $825,000 a month to train new prison gaurds to replace the 75 goons that quit every month because of low pay or shitty working conditions!!! is this a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing??/ Original Article Prisons plagued by officer vacancies Department has over 1,300 jobs Judi Villa The Arizona Republic Sept. 16, 2005 12:00 AM More than 1 years after a 15-day hostage standoff at a prison in Buckeye, pay levels for state corrections officers remain so low that the Department of Corrections is struggling to fill more than 1,300 job openings and forcing officers to work overtime to keep inmates safely secured behind bars. Although officials say public safety has not been jeopardized and assaults on officers actually are down, short staffing and mandatory overtime is blamed for officer burnout and rampant turnover. About 75 officers resign every month. For each one who quits, the state has to pay about $11,000 to train a new one. After the January 2004 standoff at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis, an investigative panel recommended, among other things, that the department increase staffing and pay to help prevent another crisis. Last year, Arizona legislators boosted pay $1,400 for corrections officers, on top of a 1.7 percent raise for all state employees, but officer pay remains thousands of dollars below other law enforcement agencies in the Valley. It all adds up to more job openings in the state prison system than at any point since 1998 and more expense to taxpayers to keep training officers who don't stay. Corrections Director Dora Schriro said she plans to seek additional raises for officers in the next Legislative session. Right now, though, officials are boosting recruitment efforts, bringing back media advertising campaigns and job fairs that had been suspended in recent years because of budget cuts. The next job fair is Saturday at the Lewis prison, which typically has one of the highest job vacancy rates of any prison in the state. "It's becoming epic proportions right now. I've never seen it this bad," said Joe Masella, a prison gang investigator who is president of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association. And, Masella said, "it's getting worse." Rep. Russell Pearce, who heads the House Appropriations Committee that oversees the state's prison budget, said helping to hire and keep corrections officers will be a "top priority" for lawmakers in the 2006 legislative session. Pearce said that lawmakers improved stipends and raises for the Corrections Department when other state employees' pay did not improve and that the state has set up van pools and other programs to make jobs in prisons outside city limits more attractive. Improving pay is one way to help, Pearce said, but it's not the only answer. "I'm concerned that we fill these positions with good employees, because it's an officer safety issue," said Pearce, R-Mesa. "Money's not the answer to everything, though. People will work hard if they're appreciated. In every survey that I've seen, money has never been the Number 1 issue for employee retention. It's obviously one of the issues, but it's tough to find where that balance is." Just about every law enforcement agency in the Valley is struggling to hire enough officers to keep up with growth and an anticipated surge in retirements, leaving the prison system competing for the same pool of candidates but offering far less money. "The bottom line is we really need to make the salaries competitive," Schriro said. Consider: Statewide, the job vacancy rate for all prisons is more than 21 percent. Some prisons, like those in Buckeye and Tucson, need in excess of 200 officers. The average vacancy rate increased from 11.4 percent in fiscal 2004 to 18.6 percent in fiscal 2005. Starting pay for corrections officers is $26,364 despite last year's pay hike. Top pay is $42,997. By comparison, detention officers at the Maricopa County jails start at $31,179. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for corrections officers and jailers nationwide in 2003 was $33,160. In just the past two months, 141 corrections officers have quit. Even incentive pay and stipends at some of the more remote prisons haven't stopped the exodus. Nearly a third of officers who resign cite financial considerations as the reason for their departure. Others cite things like health and family considerations and new career opportunities. "We continue to lose our best and our brightest because they're going somewhere else that puts more food on the table," said Ivan Bartos, warden of the Lewis prison, where a job fair will be held Saturday. The job vacancy rate at Lewis has surpassed what it was when inmates Ricky Wassenaar and Steven Coy took two officers hostage in a watchtower in January 2004, Bartos said. Last week, the prison's vacancy rate was 24 percent. "Of course I'm concerned," Bartos said. "Right now, the staffing issue is the biggest challenge that I have. "We have a public safety component to what we do. We have to maintain a certain level of staffing. We are continually asking staff to work more." Prisons are trying to anticipate staffing shortages further in advance to allow officers to volunteer for overtime without affecting their personal lives, but the extra hours still take a toll, Schriro said. "There are far too few people working far too many hours," she said. "It's exhausting, and it's unfair, and it's at best a short-term strategy." As a result, the agency is redoubling recruitment efforts. In addition to job fairs, recruiters are touting benefits, like full tuition reimbursement that was reinstated two years ago, and attempting to expose applicants to the array of opportunities in the department, from working on K-9 units, firefighting crews and tactical teams to helping victims. The department also is contacting Valley vocational schools, hoping to build long-term relationships with students, and it is posting jobs on military Web sites to attract veterans. Staff members are compiling a list of 100 reasons why the department is a great place to work. "Clearly our needs are chronic," Schriro said. "We can't rest until we're at 100 percent. "Even if we had no vacancies, we would be working very hard to cover all the posts that we have." Masella said about 80 percent of officers quit in the first two years, and with new jails opening in Maricopa and Pinal counties, it's likely the state will lose even more unless pay improves. "We're in a bad situation," he said. Staff reporter Robbie Sherwood contributed to this article.