Arkansas State Legislature Votes to Continue Mid 19th Century Practices (updated)

[Omaha Steve]

Today the Special Languages Committee of the Joint Budget Committee of the Arkansas State Legislature voted to continue balancing their budget off of the backs of the Arkansas Department of Corrections' correctional officers. As of March 3rd these brave men and women were owed over $16,000,000 in back pay for Holiday pay, Overtime pay, and Straight Time pay, with it expected to increase to over $20,000,000 by the end of the fiscal year. Now some might wonder what it is that we're calling straight time. Under federal law correctional officers can work 86 hours in a two week period before they go into time and a half. The Arkansas Department of Corrections has been "banking" the hours of 81 to 86, and then later they would sporadically pay out a percentage of it (they claim quarterly, but there has been gaps of over 10 months). This banked time can amount to between $500 to $1000 on a pay check. Due to the shortage of employees they must also work almost everyone overtime, which they "bank" as well, and on holidays (because prisons don't shut down). The amount of holiday time as of now totals over $14,000,000 system wide. Some men and women are owed over $40,000. Often these officers will quit their jobs in order to be paid out what is owed to them, and then come back 6 or 7 weeks later and reapply for their same position (They're already trained so that saves the department some money). This morning a representative had a bill in this committee to allow the employees to elect to be paid or have their time be banked on the overtime and straight time, in an attempt to put a band-aid on the bleeding (right now that totals to a little over $2,000,000). The committee failed to give it enough votes to pass and instead decided to vote on whether or not to give a state fair $2.5 million. This is nothing more than indentured servitude. Please help me get this story out.

Update: Republican State Senator Kim Hendren spoke passionately before the entire Joint Budget Committee and got our men and women 1.5 Million out of surplus money. While this doesn't stop the practice, at least now they can pay a portion of what they're owed. There were very few no votes in the committee, and many resounding yea's.

[RKP5637]

1. K&R

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Do you have a link?