The Lake County Online News just published this story: http://lakeconews.com/content/view/19546/919/
The jail doesn't have the staff to do this. It will actually cause MORE overtime. There are laws about staffing a jail, and this jail can not meet minimum safe staffing standards (set by the state board of corrections) on 8 hour shifts without an immense amount of overtime. I'm wondering if officers will even have to be "ordered" to work overtime to meet these standards. Traditionally the officers at the jail were only paid overtime for working more than 80 hours in a two week period. So the 12 hours shifts themselves caused only a small amount of overtime. In a typical 2 week period the officers would work 7 days. 7 days times 12 hours = 4 hours of overtime. (I have since been corrected. The Correctional Officers negotiated this away a few years ago. They do NOT get overtime at all for a typical 84 hour two week period) So an average of a bit over 8 hours of overtime in a month. I don't know how it was done with the deputies. If the article is to be believed, it seems that this is just because Frank didn't like it when he was a deputy. Officers on 12 hours shifts rotate between getting 3 and 4 days off at a time, allowing them to spend time with their families, take short vacations to decompress without missing work, and volunteer in their children's schools. They've been on 12 hour shifts for years, and are used to it, even prefer it.
Officers are called to testify in court.....so now they may have periods of time where they don't get ANY days off. How is that good for morale and production?
Let me say it again just to be clear...THIS IS GOING TO CAUSE A LOT OF OVERTIME! An estimated 1000 hours per month at the jail alone. This blogger thinks that a certain sheriff might try to use this as an excuse to cut wages because once it's implemented the amount of overtime is going to be staggering.
Do you recall what one of my possible upcoming projects is? Is the Sheriff fiscally responsible? Is he operating within the budget?
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