Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Bucks County corrections administrators noticed something they’d never seen before:Where once the department had a waiting list for correction officer jobs, applications now were on the decline.
Two years later, the department has more vacancies than people to fill them. The turnover rate for corrections officers in Bucks has more than doubled, leaving fewer officers as inmate populations begin to rise again after declining during the pandemic.
Neighboring Montgomery County is facing the same dilemma. With an average daily population of 870 inmates, up from 839 last year, there are currently 207 corrections officers and nearly three dozen vacancies at the jail in Lower Providence.
Bucks and Montgomery counties are not alone.
Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a nonprofit group that advocates for inmates, asked about 30 county representatives at a meeting if they were experiencing correction officer shortages.
“Almost all said yes,” Executive Director Claire Shubik-Richards said.
Staff shortages are a perpetual challenge for most correctional facilities, but the pandemic pushed many into crisis mode, according to national data. It has also forced counties to get more creative and generous with recruitingto compete for a smaller applicant pool.
Fewer correction officers means mandatory overtime shifts, increasing costs for taxpayers. For inmates, it can mean longer lockdowns and cancelationof activities, which creates tension and increases risks of violence. It also has resulted in court case backlogs, as there are not enough officers to accompany defendants to court appearances.
The resulting stress and physical exhaustion has led more veteran officers to retirement and newer officers to quit sooner, according to corrections experts.
“Industry-wide, speaking to other people in corrections, it’s been a rough year with COVID,” said Bucks County Corrections Director David Kratz. “These officers have been through a lot. They’ve really been dragged through the grinder. People are tired.”
Kratz himself is new to the role, having assumed the top administrative position in October, after his predecessor, Chris Pirolli, 58, retired after 39 years, the last four in the job Kratz now has.
In Montgomery County, Corrections Department Warden Julio Algarin, 70, retired last year after 45 years, the last 15 in the top administrator role
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How staff shortages impact jails
Bucks County jail currently employs 209 corrections officers, and Bucks County commissioners are expected to approve 11 new hires at its next meeting.
Yet based on the inmate population, Kratz would like to see the number of staff closer to 240. There are currently nine supervisor vacancies and 59 correction officer vacancies, though some of those positions are reserved for the new 306-bed women’s correctional center scheduled to open in the summer, county spokesman James O’Malley said.
Correction officer turnover in Bucks has jumped from 11% in 2019 to 26.5% last year, according to county employment data.Between 2018 and 2019, 16 corrections officers retired. In the last year,22 retired.
An average shift requires 30 to 45 correction officers on duty, which works out to two officers to run a module with up to 92 offenders, Kratz said. In modules with a high number of inmates on watch protocols, which requireregular monitoring, the number of officers rises to three.
The impact of staffing shortages has worsened as a result of rolling delays in offender transfers to state prisons as a result of COVID outbreaks there. The transfer backlog has forced counties to keep inmates sentenced to state time longer than normal.
Pre-COVID, inmate transfers were scheduled weekly, but as recently as last month it can be a two- or three-week wait,and only five offenders are taken each trip, Kratz said.
The holding pattern has meant between 30 and 70 extra offenders are held at the jail, which has created tight quarters, Kratz said. It also has meant that at times, the jail has had to go to temporary cots in cells and dayrooms to accommodate. It has made it much harder to isolate inmates during COVID outbreaks, he added.
Another issue is that once an offender is sentenced to state prison, the supervision and security requirements increase, which, with fewer officers, means mandatory overtime shifts.
One strategy to deal with staffing shortage has been the implementation of rolling lockdowns, where inmates are restricted to their cells, Kratz said.If half a module is locked down, it means only one officer is needed on the block instead of two.
The jail does the limited lockdowns a couple times a week, typically lasting four to eight hours, Kratz said.
“That helps,” Kratz added. “We try to do it as a last resort.”
The addition of a program at the start of the pandemic that issued electronic tablets to inmates, which allow them to take classes, and download movies, educational programs and e-books, has helped with the rolling lockdowns, Kratz said. Recently the county upgraded the tablets to allowvideo visitation, which reduces officer need, and overtimes costs, for in-person visits, he said.
Mandatory overtime, COVID cited as reasons for leaving
Rolling lockdowns have also helped with keeping corrections staff fresh and rested, despite an increase in mandatory overtime shifts over the last six months, Kratz said.
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Mandatory overtime happens several times a week and heavily impacts the weekend shifts, he said.
Voluntary overtime goes by seniority, but mandatory overtime shifts are the opposite, targeting the newest workers first and putting a greater burden on them. Mandatory overtime shifts are four to eight hours, but no more than 16, Kratz said.
Despite the worker shortage, though, county data shows the amount of overtime paid to corrections officers has dropped over the last two years from $3.53 million in 2019 to $2.60million last year.The county paid $1.97 million in overtime in 2020, though the jail population was reduced as a COVID mitigation effort.
The mandatory overtime, along with a shift work schedule that changes often and includes weekends, has been a major factor in the exodus of newer corrections officers with less than than five years on the job, Kratz said.
The county’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees, implemented last year, has not been a “dominant theme” offered as a reason for leaving in exit interviews with corrections staff, O’Malley, the county's spokesman, added.
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Montgomery County, which does not have a vaccine mandate for corrections officers, recently hired five new corrections officers, who will work rotating two-week shifts of 12 hours per shift, county spokeswoman Kelly Cofrancisco said.
The worker shortage has forced mandatory overtime at the jail, too, she added, but so far Montgomery County has avoided routine rolling lockdowns as a result of staffing.
'Everything is on the table'
Both counties say they’ve stepped up recruiting efforts in recent months.
Montgomery County plans to replicate tactics they used last year, Cofrancisco said. Those included buying newspaper ads and digital advertising and using county social media accounts to promote corrections positions, which carry a starting base salary at $41,718 a year. A walk-up hiring event was also held at the jail.
Bucks County is doubling down its efforts working with CareerLink and workforce development agencies for recruiting.They are attending more career fairs and working with the county’s military affairs department to tap U.S. veterans for second-career opportunities, Kratz said.
The department is also reaching out to displaced workers and human resource departments directly, among them a Collegeville manufacturing plant that is closing its operations, Kratz said.
Bucks County correction officers are paid an hourly rate that ranges from $22.14 to $28.79. But there are plans in the works to offer financial incentives similar to what was done at the 360-bed county-run Neshaminy Manor Nursing Home, which is also experiencing staffing shortages.
The county has authorized bonuses of $3,000 for current Neshaminy Manor employees, $3,000 and $1,500 sign-on bonuses for new employees, and another $1,500 after six months employment.The county will use money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act for the payments.
“Everything is on the table right now,” Kratz said.
Increasing wages and benefits and enticing employees is a smart long-term move, but it also takes time to hire, said Shubik-Richards, of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
In the short term, counties need to keep the number of incarcerated individuals low enough to be at safe staffing levels, she said.
Those efforts could include speeding up court dates and reviewing all cases for people in custody to determine if there are people who don’t pose a threat to the community, Shubik-Richards suggested.
Another short term fix is exploring if there are responsibilities typically done by corrections officers that can be done by county administrative staff, like delivering mail and meals.
“This often bumps into union issues,” she said. “But if all parties are concerned about the safety of employees and people in custody, those issues should be able to be temporarily overcome to avert the crisis.”
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