LANSING — On Oct. 30 the Michigan Senate passed bills SB0165-SB0167 which brings corrections officers and other types of law enforcement such as conservation officers into a pension system. The bills were all passed with 25 yeas, 12 nays and 1 excused for each. These bills have passed during a search for solutions for the Michigan Department of Corrections staffing crisis in which some facilities throughout the state are facing nearly 40% employment vacancies.

Due to the vacancies, officers are constantly mandated for 16-hour shifts and this has severely impacted their mental and physical health as well as devastated their social lives and prisoners are not receiving full access to their services such as yard time due to the understaffing.

During the end of the summer, officers and their supporters picketed outside prisons all throughout Michigan demanding change to assist their needs as well as make the profession more attractive to potential hires. One of the things that many officers throughout these pickets had mentioned would help retain officers in the field as well as make the job look desirable was the reintroduction of a pension. Now that the bills has passed the senate it will appear before the Michigan House during their next session. The votes were unanimous amongst democrat senators with five republicans crossing the aisle to approve the bill.  

Amongst the five republicans were the two senators that represent the districts within the U.P. and joined officers in the pickets, Senators John Damoose of Michigan’s 37th District and Ed McBroom of Michigan’s 38th District. McBroom had in the past introduced bills SB0156 and SB0157 addressing the issues of Michigan’s corrections officers’ retainment, though the bills had not come through. However the current bills had many similarities and McBoom said that he felt a great feeling of accomplishment to see the bills have the chance to move forward. While on the Senate floor McBroom explained his reasoning for voting in favor of the bills but also said he shares some criticisms with the 12 senators who voted against it such as the inclusion of other professions.

“I do agree that there were other methods and ways of approaching this,” he said. “And I worked on this issue for many years, but the urgency that we have at corrections right now cannot be avoided any longer. We are in a crisis, a staffing crisis and a violence crisis at our state facilities.”

McBroom then said that retention is a concern with a report from the Department of Corrections signifying that within the last year employee departures who had worked for less than one year was 108 and those who have worked between one and three years was also 108, which was nearly half of the new employees. He emphasized that other states such as Wisconsin and Kansas offer far better pay and benefits for the dangerous profession.

“Clearly we need to step up our game, because the situation is dangerous and people are being hurt,” McBroom said. “Officers are being hurt. Inmates are being hurt. The situation is intolerable and shouldn’t be tolerated any longer.”

McBroom then went on to emphasize that the bill addresses the longterm need of employee retention but does not address the immediate dangers from the conditions of the prisons due to understaffing and that more work is necessary to efficiently address the prison crises.

Before McBroom had spoken, Republican Sen. Thomas Albert of Michigan’s 18th District explained why he voted against the bill. Albert believed that the crisis needs to be addressed though believes the bill was not the correct solution. He pointed to the underfunding of current pensions for law enforcement and mishandling of teachers pensions in Michigan and that the state owes roughly an aggregate $40 billion of retirement debt. His concern is that this will further burden Michigan taxpayers and that the existing law enforcement pensions demonstrate faults in the system with the state troopers retirement system being 66% funded with nearly 1.2 billion in unfunded liabilities. Albert also expressed concern over new hires not having the ability to choose whether they wish to have a pension or a 401 K plan.

Despite the disagreements on how to proceed to address the crisis, all senators who had spoken at the session agreed that the crisis must be resolved and how it will be addressed has passed through the senate. McBroom reiterates though that much more work is needed to bring support and relief to corrections officers and that those who wish to support them must be persistent.

“I would tell our corrections officers they are going to have to really fight now more than they have even in the past several months because of the limited amount of time the Legislature is going to be in session now,” he said. “The rest of this year we’re talking between six and 12 days of session and to get that through the House, in the midst of all the other lame duck projects, and to convince Heidi Washington (who has traditionally opposed this)to recommend that the Governor sign it. It’s going to be a very tall order. And so we have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks.”

McBroom said the best way to ensure the bill proceeds and has the greatest chance of reaching the governor’s desk is to put pressure on legislators and the governor by contacting them and expressing support for the bill and voicing concerns that corrections officers and prisoners face within correctional facilities due to the staffing shortages.

“It’s not acceptable to see the state treating its state employees this way; tearing families apart because guys and ladies are working 16 and 20 hour shifts and doing it multiple times a week and not having time at all to be with their families,” McBroom said. “They drag themselves home, get some sleep and a meal, and drag themselves back to work again. It’s wrong and it’s not safe. The shortages of staff are keeping our citizens who are incarcerated from being able to access the important programming. They need to access their important free time and other rights that they have and the closed positions [from understaffing] means no access to the yard, no access to the weight room, no access to the library or to the classroom. These are all big problems, and the state needs to take them very seriously. So citizens need to pass on to our government, ‘You’ve got a staff problem. You’ve got a shortage problem. Do something about it.'”