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Chronic understaffing at Hawaiʻi prisons balloons overtime costs

FILE - A corrections officer at the Women's Community Correctional Center on Oʻahu. (Oct. 25, 2022)
Sophia McCullough
/
Hawaiʻi Public Radio
FILE - A corrections officer at the Women's Community Correctional Center on Oʻahu. (Oct. 25, 2022)

Office assistants and adult corrections officers top the list of most vacancies across state government.

With more than 300 vacancies for adult corrections officers, Department of Public Safety Director Tommy Johnson said the department needs to look at ways to get fresh staffing at state jails and correctional facilities.

To increase recruitment, PSD has offered night classes and is in the process of adjusting some training standards. With academy training, PSD is thinking of shortening ACO classes from 11 weeks to eight weeks, then finishing with a three-week program at a facility.

They're also looking at changing the physical agility test, which would be more in line with what's expected of the officers.

An inmate's bed and personal items at the Oʻahu Community Correctional Center on Oct. 24, 2022.
Sabrina Bodon
/
HPR
An inmate's bed and personal items at the Oʻahu Community Correctional Center on Oct. 24, 2022.

"We lost a lot of good corrections officers with 30 years experience in late 2019, through 2020, '21, and into 2022," Johnson said last week. "So, right now, we're at the tail end of that silver tsunami, but it really hurt us because we lost a lot of experience."

Prior to the pandemic, the Department of Human Resources Development did a study to find how many staff were eligible to retire in the near future for the Department of Public Safety.

The state hovers around a vacancy rate of 25% to 30%, with more than 400 jobs posted for recruitment.

"Like many employers in Hawaiʻi, and the mainland, the state has struggled to recruit and retain employees for a variety of reasons, including issues related to COVID-19, intermittent hiring freezes, retirements, etc.," Brenna Hashimoto, director for the state's Department of Human Resources Development, wrote in an email.

"Because of the unique nature of some of our operations, any of our jobs require specialized experience at the journey and supervisory levels, so we often recruit externally at the entry-level, with no experience requirements and train employees for promotion," Hashimoto said.

Hashimoto said that DHRD is working to start a five-piece recruiter team focused on law enforcement, health care, social services, blue-collar jobs, engineers and administrative jobs. 

"The goal of the team will be to conduct more targeted outreach; develop relationships with (the University of Hawaiʻi), the community colleges, and high schools to promote state jobs; and to use employment-based social media to generate more interest in state jobs," Hashimoto said.

FILE - Beds at the Women's Community Correctional Center near Kailua on Oʻahu. (Oct. 25, 2022)
Sophia McCullough
/
HPR
FILE - Beds at the Women's Community Correctional Center near Kailua on Oʻahu. (Oct. 25, 2022)

Over at the Department of Public Safety, Johnson said recruitment efforts increased "almost 50% from 2020, when I came on board." A new class of recruits will graduate in June, totaling about 200 new recruits in the last few years.

According to Johnson, there are about 304 vacant ACO positions, which sets them around a 20% vacancy rate.

Compared to other jurisdictions, Hawaiʻi's vacancy rate is actually just a little under. According to Johnson, some are operating at 36% to 40%.

Vacancies lead to overtime costs. In 2021, the state spent around $29.4 million in overtime for the department. It then grew to $34 million in 2022. This year, they're on track to spend $37 million in overtime. 

Since Hawaiʻi's correctional facilities are outdated, they oftentimes need more staffing. Johnson said updating the facilities, like the Oʻahu Community Correctional Center, has the opportunity to lower staffing across the board.

"The way the facility's laid out now, because it's so old and antiquated, it's staff intensive," Johnson said.

In a newer facility, 100 or so staff members could be reduced to 80 "on duty for the same amount of inmates because of the design and the way the facility is laid out and with more modern security surveillance techniques," he explained.

The state has been trying to replace OCCC for nearly a decade. This session, lawmakers appropriated funding for the planning and design phase in the upcoming fiscal year, but lawmakers underfunded the facility by about $15 million over the next two years.

"Every year we delay the project, it costs more," Johnson said.

Back in 2018, the state projected a $500 million facility.

"That same facility today, if you think about escalation costs of 8% to 10% escalation costs, and you look at every month, it's about $3.5 million in costs increase," Johnson said.

Sabrina Bodon was Hawaiʻi Public Radio's government reporter.
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