SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Failure to offer competitive salaries to registered nurses (RNs) working in California prisons has resulted in the Department of Corrections (CDC) paying temporary agencies more than double the state salary to fill vacant positions, according to an analysis of private contracts by the California State Employees Association (CSEA).
The analysis shows that the state will have spent $172.6 million between and on temporary RNs in California prisons. The figure includes money already spent as well as money that the agency expects to spend by the end of . Of that amount, CSEA found that 31 percent -- $53.5 million -- is waste. The calculation is based on the difference between the average total compensation package for state RNs and the average salary paid by CDC to private contractors.
But the potential for waste is far greater. The total value of the contracts that enable CDC to hire temporary RNs is $1.3 billion. Meaning, the agency can spend far more money if it fails to hire civil service nurses or if attrition among their ranks accelerates.
CDC's longstanding reliance on contract RNs violates government code section (b)(10), which specifies the conditions and circumstances under which the state may hire contract services.
"CDC has never met any of these conditions," said Perry Kenny, CSEA's president. "It continues to spend more by paying civil service RNs less than it should. With a $38.2 billion deficit and 11,000 state workers facing layoff, waste of this magnitude is unconscionable. It must end."
The union is requesting a legislative audit of the abuse and is demanding that the State Personnel Board (SPB) terminate the contracts.
CSEA cautioned that without substantial wage hikes for state RNs even more money will be wasted. Low state salaries coupled with poor working conditions and a national RN shortage have pushed nurse attrition to record levels at California prisons.
The overall vacancy rate for nurses in California prisons is 25 percent, but at many facilities the vacancy rate is much higher. At Salinas Valley State Prison the vacancy rate is 67.5 percent. At San Quentin State Prison it is 60 percent, and at Folsom State Prison it is 41 percent.
"State nurses are fed up. They know they can double their salary in the private sector, and they're doing it," said Ken Hennington, chairman of CSEA Bargaining Unit 17, which represents 3,380 state nurses.
Statewide more than 630 state-employed RNs represented by CSEA Unit 17 quit the profession or abandoned state service for jobs in the private sector during the 12 months ending October . Their departures left nurses who remained on the job in a bind: juggling 60-hour workweeks, negotiating dangerous nurse-to-patient ratios, handling staggering levels of paperwork and coping with the effects of chronic exhaustion brought on by mandatory overtime -- often working back-to-back 8-hour shifts.
Wage disparity is the root of the problem. CDC pays private companies that supply temporary RNs to prisons an average of $59.36 an hour or $123,468 a year. State RNs earn an average salary of $28.95 an hour or $60,226 a year. And while the union and the state have negotiated a pay raise as well as recruitment and retention allowances, salaries for state RNs remain far below market rates.
"By paying contractors double and failing to negotiate fair salaries for its own RNs, the state has created a self-cannibalizing system," observes Hennington.
It works like this: CDC solicits bids from private contractors and ranks those bids according to cost. When CDC needs RNs, it calls the lowest bidders first. "Problem is, when temp nurse A talks to temp nurse B and B learns that higher wages are available elsewhere, she moves to the higher-paying temp agency," leaving the lower bidding vendor unable or less able to fill job orders, explains Hennington. "It doesn't matter that CDC uses a tiered system of contractor selection in which the lowest bidders are called first. The marketplace dynamic that CDC supports defeats the entire purpose of competitive bidding by systematically pushing costs higher."
The California State Employees Association represents more than 140,000 active and retired state civil service and California State University system workers.
Source: California State Employees Association
