Lawmakers told regional jail staff at adequate but overworked le - WOWK 13 Charleston, Huntington WV News, Weather, Sports

When Joe DeLong was appointed deputy cabinet secretary of the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety two years ago, there was a 12 percent vacancy rate among staff members of the state's regional jails.

Within the past year, he has seen the staff vacancy rate among jails reduced to between 4 and 6 percent, DeLong told lawmakers at a legislative interim committee meeting. But, he said, hiring is continual.

"I can tell you North Central Regional Jail right now is the facility we're having the most difficulty getting qualified applicants applying for jobs," he said. "We put on a heavy recruitment there, and other than that, all our other facilities right now, our vacancy rate is a matter of turnover."

DeLong said there is a bit of a lag from the time a person is terminated or resigned and the paperwork process is clear so a new person could be hired.

"I was at South Central Regional Jail last week, and they're sitting on 10 applications for hire," he said. "They're just waiting to process paperwork."

DeLong said a recent study from West Virginia University looked at staffing models for the regional jails. The study found the bare minimum staffing requirements with the fewest people, and DeLong said the state is just barely meeting those numbers.

"Other facilities we looked at in that study meet the minimum, but without enough cushion," he said. "The problem is we do not have enough positions available."

The Mountain State's regional jail facilities have been the subject of much scrutiny through the past few years as they became stuffed to capacity and then beyond capacity.

DeLong said the study analyzed the facilities for the numbers of inmates they were designed to house. The numbers were not adjusted for the actual inmates in the facilities.

"I will tell you I'm comfortable with our ability to keep the facilities manned, safe and secure," DeLong said. "You always want to have more, but I think our original staffing levels are still adequate in terms of the minimum numbers of people."

DeLong did have one concern about how thinly stretched the bare minimum number of workers can become in a week.

"My concern is when we have employees who have been there for 16 hours or 20 hours or they're working, instead of 40-hour work weeks, 60-hour work weeks or things of that nature to meet those (staff) minimums," he said. "Then you have absolute minimum staffing by people that are fatigued, and that, to me, is a greater concern."

And DeLong was able to put a dollar on the amount of overtime used at regional jail facilities.

The state is on course to pay about $7 million in overtime, DeLong said, and he would like a better plan for that amount.

DeLong said just half that - $3.5 million – could create 10 new positions at each facility.

"I believe with those 10 new positions at each facility, we'd cut our need for overtime significantly," he said. "We could save $1.5 or $2 million, I believe, if we added the positions we needed."

DeLong pointed out that "adequate" should not be concerned with "ideal," because the employee shortages compound themselves, with long hours leading to employee burnout which leads to turnover.

DeLong said there has been so much recent turnover that at South Central Regional Jail, only two guards had been able to attend training at the West Virginia State Police Academy.

"I think if we had the positions we needed, we could stop all the overtime," DeLong said. "Then you would be able to staff the facility at minimums without working overtime, and we would really lessen our exposure and our problems significantly by doing that."