Following her meeting with State Penitentiary staff about their complaints about long overtime hours, low pay, and poor working conditions, Governor Kristi Noem took questions from the press in Sioux Falls. One reporter asked the obvious question: could the state use any of that $86-million surplus to meet our prison guards’ needs? Governor Noem gave the obvious answer: we can’t use one-time money to raise pay:
We are going to use part of what we can to meet short-term needs, but salary policy has to be ongoing revenue, so that’s part of the discussion we had with the employees, too, is that salary policy is a commitment the state is making on a long-term basis, and I need to know that that revenue is going to be there every single year, too [Gov. Kristi Noem, transcribed from video of press conference, in “Noem Visits State Penitentiary Following Investigation, Firings,” KSFY, 2021.07.23].
In other words, Corrections workers, Noem has heard your complaints, but she’s not ready to give you the primary solution to your woes, real money.
But wait: how ongoing does this revenue for pay need to be? Suppose we want to give all 612 FTEs at our three major prisons (State Pen, Springfield, and Women’s Prison) a $7,000 raise right now, to make their wages competitive with prison guard wages in Minnesota and Iowa. Then let’s increase staffing by 15%: 92 guards, at an average pay of $46,000 each. The raises would cost $4.284 million; the new hires, $4.232 million. Total cost to wipe a lot of prison guard complaints off the table right: $8.516 million. The current surplus could cover this staffing solution for ten years. That’s a pretty long-term plan in my book, one that would solve the immediate problem and give the Legislature plenty of time to come up with a better plan by 2031.
If Governor Noem wanted to pay our prison guards more, she could. No law stops her and the Legislature from moving our great coronavirus-relief surplus straight to the paychecks of current and soon-to-be hired prison guards. But she’d rather sit on that free money she got from Uncle Sam… maybe until she sees how expensive a jet her Oklahoma consultants have picked out for her.
She didn’t seem to have a problem using “her authority” to increase COVID relief payments to businesses.
Well, what do you expect from a barrel racing “rancher”?
well…gee, Cory, What you’re suggesting would actually solve a systemic problem…and create a dangerous precedent…people might come to expect that their government can actually do something.
Well…yes…Arlo. I mean heaven forbid we would admit we have economic and fiscal liabilities living in a rural state. Why oh why can’t we just ADMIT we need government subsistence since this state has depended upon it for decades? Can we just stop living fantasies that we are some kind of Rambo state that does it “all on it’s own” when that’s never been the case.
Send all the funny money back. And tell these workers to suck it up and quit whining or go get another job. Plenty out there.
Grudznick, that would also require Kristi Noem to send back all of her millions in agriculture subsidy payments you call “funny money”. Let us not forget all the “funny money” to bail out big banks and corporations.
Guy-and grudz- Bailing out the banks, investment banks, insurance companies (title insurance-AIG) financial agencies (Moodys) was essential since those corporations ARE the United States of America. We all work for the Banks, God love them. It did create a dangerous precedent…we have Hank Peterson to thank…George Bush, though President, wasn’t really a player in the process.
Newland 2022: It’s unlikely he’d be worse the Kristi
It’s unlikely he’d be worse than Kristi.
Obviously, I need to find a proofreader before tossing my shorts in the ring.
Agreed, Mr. Guy
Vote Newland in 2022
(This ad paid for by grudznick, treasurer, Bob’s good friend, compatriot in deep manly affection, and confidant)
The governor declined to offer pay raises because “salary policy has to be ongoing revenue, … and I need to know that that revenue is going to be there every single year, too.” I interpret that as an admission by the governor that the state’s surplus is the result of the federal government’s infusion of billions of dollars for pandemic relief.
grudznick is such a dink …
If she would stop fighting recreational marijuana then we would have another big revenue stream coming in. I would say millions of dollars a year would be more than enough to cover wage increases for not only prison employees but teachers too. But her public image of being a no nonsense freedom loving governor is more important to her than the people who actually work their asses off in and for this state.
Greedy pubs have never ever cared about living wages for their employees so this is not surprising at all. The Vikings will win a Super Bowl before you ever hear a fat old gray-haired republican in Pierre talk about raising wages. They couldn’t possibly ever do anything nice like that for the workers.
You have your gun fetish and Freedom in SD, so quit you’re whining and git to work before they fire you for no reason. ;(
Unions are the way around Grudz, that’s why he hates them. Unionize everywhere, no more slavery.
These fellows went to college to learn to be prison guards. Now they need to work harder in their chosen career to advance and get raises. Be a better guard, get more money. Be a slackard and whiner, get less money.
https://www.twincities.com/2021/07/23/2-mn-state-employee-unions-reach-contract-agreements/
Thank goodness Unions are still alive and well in MN. State Employess, including correctional facitlity officers will be getting 2.5% wage increase raises for the next two year and Juneteenth will be declared a paid holiday in MN. Also no increases to healh care premiums for the next two years.
Good job union boys! MN knows how to fight for their workers. :)
Oh grudz, I read you whining all the time. Of course you have no idea what it takes to advance as a prison guard. The metaphor of work being like a prison is particularly applicable in this case.