It was a beautiful thing. Chief Dovalina had the Commissioners by the collar and was kicking them in the ass. We saw leadership and focus. He had figures and information to rebut the recent claims and innuendo from the Commissioners that the jail is fully staffed. This was so very much needed. Specifically, he went to ask for 64 positions and he showed where over the course of time, 832 beds had been added to the jail but that the aggregate number of officers added to staff for those beds was... 14. We have a sizable number of positions unfilled and with the newly proposed relief factor, our situation is bleak.
David Smith made the offhand comment insinuating that no officer had soiled themselves in the unit for lack of a break. I know for a fact this happened as I personally know the officer. Be that as it may, David Smith and the Commissioners are not concerned with anything more than the bottomline. Their ultimate suggestion came down to re-assigning 46 "support" positions to the 'front line' directly supervising inmates. These positions consisted of mostly single officers in various temporary duty assignments such as SERT STU (2), Triangle (yeah, thats a position thats just being wasted...), Fleet Maintenance (2), Fire Safety Officer (1), Environmental Officer (1), Tech Support (1), Yeoman Main Jail (5), Yeoman Annex (5), Facilities Services Supervisor (1 Sgt), Facility Services Staff (3). There are others, but these are the ones I recall off the top of my head.
Mr. Smith put forth the notion that these 46 positions could also be used to assist the shifts on a daily basis saying: "the folks in these support positions need to understand that they may not be working in those jobs every single day as that is not what their position was budgeted for" He has a point. Of course, the reality is a bit different in that many of the jobs filled by those officers listed above are not being done by anyone else and would cost the county thousands in order to staff if this were a perfect world.
When pointing out the fire safety position, one of the Commissioners or it may have been David Smith made the comment that we have a fire marshal. Yeah, we have a County Fire Marshal but he isn't going to be going around making sure the air packs are full, officers are trained in fire compliance requirements and dealing with the myriad of duties that Cpl. Moncus currently does. Its almost like they expect the fact that they came up with an idea, that its perfectly plausible to implement without exploring further.
Just as the suggestion from David Smith that instead of full time employees to staff the jail that we become more 'flexible' in our staffing and employ part time employees or retirees to help augment our staff. Has David Smith or anyone done a study or other research to see if anyone is interested in working at the jail for zero benefits and crappy pay in a dangerous environment with the amount of garbage that we put up with? I'm sure they will be overwhelmed with applications.
I guess I also have to speculate as to whether or not this army of part time employees and retirees that are slated to save the day will even have the proper training to be of benefit, but I'm sure Mr. Smith has that covered.
More to come.....
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