PHOTO PROVIDED
Above, leaders of Locals 306 and 307 of the American Federation of Government Employees visit Washington, D.C. to persuade lawmakers to support incentive programs for employee retention
Unions representing federal correctional officers at the penitentiary at Allenwood say they are facing a crisis point with pay cuts and hiring incentive freezes making a dangerous job even more so.
“We are 35 percent behind private sector employment,” said Andrew Hill, senior officer specialist and vice president of USP Allenwood – Local 307.
Hill, joined by Feliciano Dosman, president Low Security Correctional Institution (LSCI) Allenwood – Local 306 and Keith O’Neal, president of Local 307 – described conditions in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which is currently without a director and has seen many longstanding employees retire.
The guards said they are losing incentives and say the morale is low at a time when there are staff shortages and the prisons are struggling to remain competitive with jobs in the private sector, including new plants at Great Stream Commons, a business park across U.S. Route 15 from the prison complex.
The guards, who are facing the stress of working double shifts and mandated overtime because of staffing shortages, said this is happening as a federal government shutdown potentially also looms largely in their minds. The government may come to a halt March 14, which would mean, if it does shut down, they would not be paid until the government would be reopened – and their retroactive pay would be taxed heavily as one lump sum.
In terms of current pay, correctional officers at the Low Security Correctional Institution Allenwood – are in a BOP locality that is known as the “Rest of the United States,” which puts them at a disadvantage compared to USP Canaan, which pays 20.42% more, for example.
Allenwood is in the lowest pay scale possible.
“We fall into the ‘Rest of the United States locality,’” Dosman said. “We have no locality,” he said. Eight institutions are left across the country that fall under this locality.
“We are the lowest paid locality in the Bureau of Prisons,” Dosman said.
To add some perspective, USP Schuylkill correctional officers make 12 % more than at Allenwood.
Incentives given, then taken away
Last March, the bureau implemented retention and hiring incentives across the Allenwood complex for all departments, Hill said.
“This helped to stabilize the ongoing staffing issues the complex has been facing,” he said.
“We were losing a lot of officers,” he said, with some of them choosing to drive the extra miles to Canaan or Schuylkill. “It was hard to fill positions in the medical department,” he admitted.
Overall, FCC Allenwood received a 10 % retention incentive, at which time the complex was 114 correctional officers short. The complex is currently sitting at 113 correctional officer positions available (short), giving some idea as to the effectiveness of the incentive package implemented.
“As of the latest pay period, we will lose all hiring incentives,” Hill said, adding that does not bode well for attracting new hires.
Additionally, correctional officers will be getting a 5 % decrease; medical staff that were receiving 25 % will be receiving half of that percentage, and all hiring incentives will cease across the BOP, he added.
“We have received a substantial decrease,” Hill said, clarifying that meant a “pay cut.”
Prior to 2024, in 2023, for example, the prison complex was experiencing a 3:1 staff deficit, so the stabilization incentives were working until a more plausible resolution could be determined.
Now, that picture has changed.
“They have removed all incentives,” Dosman said. “There is no 25% bonus given to new hires,” he said. “They removed all incentives and cut those that existed by 50%. This also cuts into the health services staff,” said Dosman, who considered medical personnel to be critical frontline staff positions, especially when there are incidents of violence requiring medical treatment for staff and inmates. “It could lead to one of us not making it home,” Dosman said.
“Every staff member that we don’t retain or we lose makes a dangerous job even more dangerous,” Hill said. “We are not gaining any sort of traction from the outside. There are few applicants coming into the door, and taking away a $13,000 sign-on bonus is not going to help matters.”
Their national labor union, meanwhile, is trying to help and has put a request in for a 35 % pay increase that would align them with private sector competition, Hill said.
“We all knew that the possibility of losing the incentive was there, but we also had the idea that a more permanent solution was going to take effect,” O’Neal said.
“If they do not approve in the next appropriations bill for that 35 % SSR which is the special salary rate and we pretty much have no way of getting a higher (paying) locality here, we are in pretty big trouble,” Dosman said.
In October, the labor representatives said they traveled to Washington, D.C., to provide testimony before the Federal Salary Council. They asked for a locality rate increase. To add to their pressure, the officers also said they are paying close to 35 % of their health insurance premiums and got notice of a 2.2 % increase this year.
“I have poured my heart and soul into making Allenwood a better place to work,” Hill said. “The only way you are going to make it better is by staffing it.”
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