Bennet, Hickenlooper call on federal government to address staffing shortage issues at Florence prisons

FLORENCE, Colo. (KRDO) -- Both Colorado U.S. Senators are calling on the federal government and President Joe Biden's administration to address staffing shortage concerns at the Florence Correctional Complex (FCC) in Fremont County. 

In a letter to the new Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director, Colette Peters, Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper outline a number of issues within the FCC including low pay, forced overtime, and dangerous working conditions that are leading to an inability to recruit or hire new staff. 

Within the FCC there are four prisons including the Florence Supermax Administrative Maximum Facility. Some of the nation’s most notorious criminals are housed there including Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man responsible for the Boston Bombing, and former Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman. 

“FCC Florence is short at least 188 correctional staff, including 120 correctional officers and 66 non-custody staff below the authorized amount,” both Bennet and Hickenlooper said in their letter. 

The Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) is also struggling to fill jobs. 13 Investigates found the number of vacancies for corrections officers in the state of Colorado more than quintupled from June 2021 to June 2022.

To remedy these staffing concerns in Florence federal prisons both U.S. Senators are calling on the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to raise the retention bonus rates for all FCC employees from 10% to 25%. 

“We look forward to working with you to address the unsustainable staffing shortage at FCC Florence, and we would appreciate your response by December 20, 2022,” both Senators said in their letter addressed to BOP Director Peters.

“We've been working closely with Bennett and Hickenlooper's offices for at least eight months,” John Butkovich told 13 Investigates. 

Butkovich is the union President for AFG Local 1169, which oversees staff at the FCC. 

“We had the senators’ staff out and toured the complex two weeks ago so they can see it firsthand,” Butkovich said. “What they reported back to their bosses in D.C., the Senators, it actually sped this letter up because they saw the absolute need and concern for this staff.”

Back in July, the OPM increased the retention bonus for correctional officers from 10% to 25%. Butkovich says this helped fill a large number of corrections officer vacancies. However, if the remaining prison staff doesn’t receive the same bonuses problems will persist. 

“A fully staffed prison is a safe prison. And until we're 100% fully staffed, it's not going to be as safe as it could be. I'm not saying it's unsafe, but a fully staffed prison is safer.”

Here is a full copy of the letter from both Bennet and Hickenlooper to the BOP and OPM:

We write with concerns about understaffing and unsustainable working conditions at the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colorado (FCC Florence). This essential Bureau of Prisons (BOP) workforce and their representative union have raised concerns about low pay, forced overtime, and dangerous working conditions that have exacerbated low morale, high attrition, and an inability to recruit and hire sufficient staff. We request your help in addressing these issues to ensure a safe environment for BOP staff, the surrounding communities, and the inmate population.

FCC Florence comprises four facilities: the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp, the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), the high-security United States Penitentiary, and the Supermax Administrative Maximum Facility where many of the nation’s most high-profile criminals are detained. FCC Florence is our nation’s only federal super maximum facility, yet it remains one of the most understaffed prisons in the country.  

FCC Florence is short at least 188 correctional staff, including 120 correctional officers and 66 non-custody staff below the authorized amount. This understaffing has placed employees and the inmate population in an unsustainable environment and created a reliance on mandatory overtime and reassignment of non-custody staff. In the past 12 months, BOP reassigned non-custody staff 2,247 times to augment correctional officers, with little to no advance notification. As FCC Florence remained short-staffed over the past year, the facility saw two inmate homicides and six serious assaults. Fatigue, exhaustion, and low morale have reduced staff productivity and led to more sick leave, retirements, and resignations.

To address these urgent staffing issues, BOP provided a 10% retention bonus to current correctional officers at FCC Florence. In January, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) gave FCC Florence direct hiring authority to increase its correctional workforce. In July, OPM increased the retention bonus from 10% to 25% for correctional officers, which helped fill some vacancies. In March of 2022, OPM granted non-custody staff a 10% retention bonus, including teachers, case managers, counselors, and maintenance workers – and many of these positions remain unfilled or hard to fill. 

In addition, uncompetitive compensation has compounded staffing issues at FCC Florence. Many comparable employers in the area pay more than the BOP. For example, non-custody correctional staff with the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) make, on average, $15,000 more per year than BOP staff at FCC Florence. On top of this higher pay, CDOC correctional staff also receive retention bonuses.

Complicating the staffing shortage, in 2019, BOP decreased the number of positions authorized for each institution. These vacancies are often filled with costly overtime from already overworked staff. So far, in FY 2022, FCC Florence has paid more than $6.1 million in overtime for correctional officers, nearly double the $3.8 million in its budget. 

We appreciate the testimony from Director Peters to the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 29, 2022. In particular, we welcome her commitment to maintain “fully staffed institutions” as a “key priority for the Bureau.” In her testimony, she described how, “maintaining proper staffing levels promotes greater support for dedicated correctional workers who risk their own safety in a potentially dangerous environment on a daily basis to protect those housed in our facilities, their coworkers, and our communities.”

We completely agree. That is why we strongly support AFGE Local 1169’s request to allow all FCC Florence’s staff to receive a 25 percent retention bonus to avoid additional attrition and help promote the recruitment and hiring of new staff. We look forward to working with you to address the unsustainable staffing shortage at FCC Florence, and we would appreciate your response by December 20, 2022.