Guards plan rally over prison staffing problems

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 | 9:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A union of correctional officers in the state prison system plans to rally at the state Capitol Monday to call attention to its complants that staffing levels are dangerously low, jeopardizing the safety of prisoners, guards and other prison employees.

Gene Columbus, president of the Nevada Corrections Association, said the prisons are short of money and positions are left vacant for a shift or a day.

Glen Whorton, assistant director of the state Corrections Department, disputes the allegations that staffing is dangerously low. He said Monday that overtime is authorized to keep officers on the job when vacancies must be filled for safety reasons.

But he agreed that positions are "pulled or shut down" because of a lack of staff. The department is documenting the staffing levels at each prison and will present the information to the next Legislature.

Whorton said the prison has to live within the budget approved by the 2003 Legislature. Each day, each prison has to be managed when people call in sick or on leave.

Union leaders say that when the state faced financial shortfalls last year, the department adopted the policy of leaving a certain number of daily relief positions vacant in an effort to save money.

Columbus noted that there have been attacks on officers at prisons, including a riot of about 60 inmates at the High Desert State Prison near Indian Springs. Inmates in a lockdown unit at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City recently flooded their cells because their daily yard time was canceled due to the guard shortage.

The union's position is that when an officer is on sick leave, annual leave, training or on is pulled away to do other duties, they must be replaced for the shift.

Rookie correctional officers are being required to supervise up to 100 inmates alone, Columbus alleged.