OPEA

 OKLAHOMA CITY (October 18, 2010) – The Oklahoma Public Employees Association and employees of the Department of Corrections are calling on the Department of Corrections to suspend mandatory furloughs.

“We cannot afford to continue to ask these men and women to take a cut in pay while locking up more people,” said OPEA Executive Director Sterling Zearley.

“These employees put their lives on the line daily and are now asked to do so with fewer employees and more inmates than ever before,” said Zearley. “I want to thank those men and women who go to work every day to keep the citizens of Oklahoma safe.

“However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to staff facilities and protect the public and the employee,” Zearley continued. “The state is creating a hardship on families financially and they are creating a very unsafe environment for the employees and the citizens of Oklahoma.

“DOC is operating at 69 percent of its allotted correctional officer staffing with an inmate population at 99 percent capacity,” Zearley said. “The department has increased its inmate total by 721 over the past year. These employees cannot continue to honor the department’s mission statement of ‘Protecting the Public, Protecting the Employee, and Protecting the Offender’ at these dangerous ratios.”

Chad Reid, a Correctional Officer at Lexington Assessment and Reception Center and a single parent said, “The furloughs are making it hard on me and my son. Because of the furloughs, I have to pick up shifts to cover the staff and I may go two or three days without seeing my son. Plus, I have to pay additional day care costs and that takes money away from us for other things.”

“When my husband and I set our budget, we set it at a point of what we both made, but now with the furloughs our income has decreased by about 10 percent and we have to figure out what we can live without,” Correctional Officer IV at Lexington, Teresa Mathews said. “When we have had shortages of staff in the past my family has suffered tremendous crisis and I see that happening again.”

“These furloughs are not only hitting the uniformed staff at the department,” said Zearley. “We have non-uniformed staff, such as case managers and unit managers, that are also being affected by taking the furlough days and picking up the slack when officers are required to take time off. I want the public to know that it is an increased burden on all employees of the department.”

“OPEA has heard from correctional officers across the state that they are facing financial hardships, not buying groceries, or not having the money to buy gas to get to work,” Zearley concluded. “This is unconscionable. The department needs to stop the furloughs now and the new legislative leadership must agree to provide a supplemental appropriation to cover the shortage of funds.”

Oklahoma Public Employees Association (www.opea.org) is a non-profit labor organization that has represented the interests of state employees at the Capitol in Oklahoma since 1975.