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Correctional facility closing means loss of labor
GARDEN CITY, KAN.
(hppr) -
The East Unit of the Norton Correctional Facility is in Stockton, Kansas. Stockton is a town of about 1500 people. It is the county seat of Rooks County, population roughly 5600. The Stockton Facility is a minimum security facility that can hold 128 inmates and employs 33 people. As of April 1st it will be closed. Due to budget cuts the facility closing has been moved forward from the initial June 30th closing date. This is one part of a much larger group of cuts for the Kansas Department of Corrections. Bill Miskell is the public information officer for the Department of Corrections. Miskell says that at this time the department has identified about 8 million dollars in cuts for this fiscal year, which ends June 30th. The last quarter is quickly approaching and closing Stockton sooner will help make further reductions.
We determined that we would be able to advance the closing date from June 30th to April 1 and recognize a savings of about 339,000 dollars in the current fiscal year.
The loss of 33 jobs as well as the labor inmates perform in the surrounding area is expected to have a big impact on this small community. The Department of Corrections will be working with the employees to find them other positions. Miskell says they will likely be able to place all of 64 of the current Stockton inmates in minimum security space at another of the correctional facilities. When the Stockton facility was opened in 1988 it was with the intention of also providing a community work service program to various areas of Northwest Kansas. Since the facility has been open the inmates have performed hundreds of thousands of hours of community service work. The majority of inmates at Stockton are participating in community service work programs. Miskell says they have already performed thousands of hours of service this fiscal year.
Between July 1 of 2008 and December 31 of 2008, the first half of the fiscal year 2009, the current fiscal year, the inmates form Stockton performed more than 19,000 hours of community service work.
The cities of Stockton and Hays as well as Kirwin Refuge and Webster Reservoir benefitted from the community service. Miskell says remaining correctional facilities will still send out community service crews as much as the budget allows. Roger Hrabe directs the Rooks County Economic Development Commission. Hrabe says the closing of the Stockton facility will likely have about a one million dollar impact once you take into consideration the pay of the employees, the vendors that supply the correctional facility, and the work that the inmates do around the community free as well as paid.
Webster Lake, Kirwin Lake, they've used the inmate labor to do a lot of work that would not get done otherwise, whether that's maintenance work around the lake or whether it's building new facilities there, it's just going to have a pretty dramatic impact on everybody.
Inmate labor for the most part is virtually free labor. Hrabe doubts that the cities and counties will be able to afford to create full-time positions to do the work inmates have been accomplishing, though he thinks they might hire part-time summer help to do things like mowing. It's also unlikely the state parks could afford to hire workers to complete the work inmates have been doing. There are a number of inmates that work outside of the facility, about 15 or 20, for a private company. Hrabe says those inmates earn wages and that money goes back into the state through taxes and room and board at the facility, plus contributions to the victims' restitution fund. The sum that comes back in amounts to several hundred thousand dollars just at the Stockton facility. Hrabe says the inmates were filling open positions.
Of course, I don't know how the economy is going to change the number of jobs available or the number of positions that are open in western Kansas, but up until now there have been an awful lot jobs throughout western Kansas that there just haven't been the people to fill those jobs. We've been operating at an employee deficit and those inmates have actually been filling these positions that have not been able to be filled by other people.
Hrabe says after being released some inmates return to work and fill those positions permanently. For High Plains Public Radio, I'm Lindsey Fields.
© Copyright 2009, hppr
(2009-02-12)
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We determined that we would be able to advance the closing date from June 30th to April 1 and recognize a savings of about 339,000 dollars in the current fiscal year.
The loss of 33 jobs as well as the labor inmates perform in the surrounding area is expected to have a big impact on this small community. The Department of Corrections will be working with the employees to find them other positions. Miskell says they will likely be able to place all of 64 of the current Stockton inmates in minimum security space at another of the correctional facilities. When the Stockton facility was opened in 1988 it was with the intention of also providing a community work service program to various areas of Northwest Kansas. Since the facility has been open the inmates have performed hundreds of thousands of hours of community service work. The majority of inmates at Stockton are participating in community service work programs. Miskell says they have already performed thousands of hours of service this fiscal year.
Between July 1 of 2008 and December 31 of 2008, the first half of the fiscal year 2009, the current fiscal year, the inmates form Stockton performed more than 19,000 hours of community service work.
The cities of Stockton and Hays as well as Kirwin Refuge and Webster Reservoir benefitted from the community service. Miskell says remaining correctional facilities will still send out community service crews as much as the budget allows. Roger Hrabe directs the Rooks County Economic Development Commission. Hrabe says the closing of the Stockton facility will likely have about a one million dollar impact once you take into consideration the pay of the employees, the vendors that supply the correctional facility, and the work that the inmates do around the community free as well as paid.
Webster Lake, Kirwin Lake, they've used the inmate labor to do a lot of work that would not get done otherwise, whether that's maintenance work around the lake or whether it's building new facilities there, it's just going to have a pretty dramatic impact on everybody.
Inmate labor for the most part is virtually free labor. Hrabe doubts that the cities and counties will be able to afford to create full-time positions to do the work inmates have been accomplishing, though he thinks they might hire part-time summer help to do things like mowing. It's also unlikely the state parks could afford to hire workers to complete the work inmates have been doing. There are a number of inmates that work outside of the facility, about 15 or 20, for a private company. Hrabe says those inmates earn wages and that money goes back into the state through taxes and room and board at the facility, plus contributions to the victims' restitution fund. The sum that comes back in amounts to several hundred thousand dollars just at the Stockton facility. Hrabe says the inmates were filling open positions.
Of course, I don't know how the economy is going to change the number of jobs available or the number of positions that are open in western Kansas, but up until now there have been an awful lot jobs throughout western Kansas that there just haven't been the people to fill those jobs. We've been operating at an employee deficit and those inmates have actually been filling these positions that have not been able to be filled by other people.
Hrabe says after being released some inmates return to work and fill those positions permanently. For High Plains Public Radio, I'm Lindsey Fields.
© Copyright 2009, hppr
