Governor Tony Evers is the beneficiary of a depleted and complacent Capitol press corps. Any other governor at any other time would be facing daily pressure to fix the scandals within his Department of Corrections.
The conditions at many facilities are unsafe, for prisoners and employees. In fact, they have proven to be deadly.
Staff turnover and vacancies have increased the danger.
Evers has refused to fund construction of new, more modern, safer facilities and he vetoed a pay increase for prison guards.
When he vetoed the 2022 bill to increase the pay for correctional officers, Evers said he didn’t want to use one-time COVID relief funds to address a long-term budget item.
Yet, on August first of this year, Evers ordered the state’s Department of Health Services to do just that and use $285 million in leftover COVID-funds to increase pay people who take care of seniors and those with disabilities in the state.
He hasn’t been asked about the reversal in policy on the use of COVID funds.
When pay was hiked in the last budget (starting wages for correctional officers, sergeants and youth counselors was bumped from $20 to $33 an hour), the staffing shortages at Wisconsin’s prisons eased somewhat. But they remain dangerous places. Inmates have died. They’ve endured extreme periods of lockdowns. Corrections employees have been hurt and killed. More face trauma from the working conditions.
Evers is never pressed about this. Even as the media coverage increased recently after one former warden was arrested and charged with a felony in conjunction with an inmate death, the buck never stops with the Governor.
In fact, the press spends more effort blaming the former governor for changes in Wisconsin’s collective bargaining law (see below). But ACT 10 didn’t thwart plans to replace the Green Bay Correctional Institution, Evers did. And Scott Walker isn’t in charge of the Department of Corrections. Since 2019, Tony Evers has been.
He’s been in charge of this mess for almost 6 years.
As state lawmakers debated a pay raise for prison guards to fill a growing number of vacancies in 2022, a Dodge Correctional Institution sergeant made an alarming prediction.
“It’s only a matter of time until a staff or inmates are going to be killed based on these staff shortages,” he wrote.
Two years later, that’s exactly what happened.
…Last year, the department had the highest number of prisoner assaults on staff members since 2013, when the Department of Corrections began tracking that data across all prisons. That same year, the share of vacant security staff positions across the agency also peaked with more than 1,500 unfilled jobs, about 35% of the total.
For those who live in Waupun, a city of about 11,000 people, and who work at one of the three state prisons located there, the ultimate blame for the tragedies lies 50 miles away, in the state Capitol.
Signs in front yards around the city have the same message:
“Madison knew.”
…After years of advocacy, correctional staff finally did get a pay raise.
The original 2022 bill to give pay raises to correctional staff was vetoed by Evers, the governor, who objected to the use of federal pandemic relief money for those raises, which also would have been temporary.
Meanwhile…
Evers ordered raises for direct care staff, duration unknown | The Center Square
Most of Wisconsin’s direct care workers are going to see their paychecks jump come October, but there are questions as to how long those bigger paychecks will last.
On Aug. 1, Gov. Tony Evers ordered the state’s Department of Health Services to use $285 million in leftover COVID-relief money to increase the minimum fee schedule for the people who take care of seniors and those with disabilities in the state.
Here are some links to other stories from across Wisconsin today. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll be back with more Key Reads on Monday.
New invasive insect found in Wisconsin | Spectrum1
Brewers’ Christian Yelich out for season, to undergo back surgery | WISN
Wisconsin Is the 5th Most Popular Fishing Destination in the U.S. | WJFW
‘The Frozen Confines: Big Ten Hockey Series’ set for Jan. 4 | UW Athletics
Wisconsin still leader in cranberries | Ag Update
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