$50,000.00 a day, that's all we ask.

Reports from financial insiders at the California Institution For Men in Chino tell me that the average daily overtime costs, for this one prison alone, are $50,000.00. Yes folks, thats Fifty Thousand Dollars a day, every day, in overtime paid from the wallets and purses of the taxpayer.

Now, before the black helicopter crowd can formulate a knee-jerk reactionary belief that this is part of a grand conspiracy by the prison guard's union (CCPOA) to enrich their membership, a bit of explanation is in order.

The decisions within the California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (CalDORC) which eventuated in this monetary hemorrage, were made by the former Secretary, Roderick Hickman who, following the cost-cutting directives of his boss, Arnold Schwarzenneger, closed the Correctional Officer training academy in an effort to save a buck. History is already showing that this decision was penny wise but pound foolish even though it may have seemed to be a good decision at the time.

Being a consummate political kite, sailing on the winds of political change, no one could accuse The former CalDORC Secretary, Mr. Hickman, of being in the pocket of CCPOA during his final days, as the acrimony between he and CCPOA was obvious through postings on the official CCPOA web site and the unofficial CCPOA bulletin board.

Caught in the middle of this bonehead decision are the uniformed correctional staff, some of whom willingly benefit from this situation, but most of which would rather have a life outside of the prison walls and spend time with their families. For the latter, they are forced to choose between their job and family. As if this situation were not absurd enough, it is being reported that additional vacations are being granted to correctional staff, above and beyond the capacity of the pool of assigned relief staff, to fill behind these vacations and, as a result, these "extra" vacation vacancies are being filled with even more overtime staff, further exacerbating the order-overs.

In light of the staffing emergency at CIM, if this information is accurate (my sources are usually very reliable) this has to be one of the more bonehead decisions made by any of CIM's management teams. I hope the Main Stream Media will keep this in mind when they do their annual bloodletting about all of the money correctional staff is making within CalDORC.

The last time this occurred at the California Institution For Men was when a memorandum, from the Department of Finance surfaced, cosigned by Larry Witek (then the Deputy Director of Institutions Division) and Wendy Stihl (from the Department of Finance) approving the provision of Vacation and Holiday Relief Officers, on an overtime basis, to augment the Vacation Relief pool of Correctional Staff. However, at that time, CIM's staffing was not so deficient that this had an appreciable effect on staff being ordered over to work these overtime shifts.

The most recent carpetbagger to trudge through the office of the CalDORC Secretary is James Tilton, and it will be a fascinating study to see if the past "creative accounting" of the Department of Finance, from whence he comes, has rubbed off on him.

Welcome to the Office of Secretary Mr. Tilton, good luck and good night.

Lorraine Bradley