Corrections loses 330 slots, will close 6 units

The Virginia Department of Corrections, the state’s largest agency with 13,606 authorized employees, will bear the brunt of new state job cuts.

Two correctional centers and four smaller facilities will be closed, accounting for more than 250 of the 330 positions the department is eliminating as part of its effort to save an additional $22.7 million this fiscal year.

But the workers might not be out of jobs.

“We’ve been banking approximately 1,200 vacancies in anticipation of the budget reductions,“ department spokesman Larry Traylor said yesterday. “It is our hope that within these vacancies we would find a place for those 330 employees.“

Traylor said that besides the age and location of facilities, “we targeted reductions that would least compromise the security of our system.“

But officials in Southampton and Pulaski counties, where the two correctional facilities will close, expressed concern about jobs, not security, yesterday.

The largest facility targeted for closing, the original part of the Southampton Correctional Center, which opened in 1938, means the loss of 116 jobs in rural Southampton.

“It’s going to have a very deep impact,“ said Jay Randolph, the assistant county administrator. The prison is one of the largest employers in the county, where farming is the chief industry and other jobs are scarce.

Though plans eventually call for building a new prison there, Randolph said that for now the state is leaving the employees and the county in a spot. He said some employees might be able to transfer to work elsewhere, but high gasoline prices limit the appeal of commutes.

Del. David A. Nutter, R-Montgomery, who represents Pulaski County, said the news that the state was shutting down the 58-year-old Pulaski Correctional Center and laying off 62 employees came as a complete surprise.

“I was driving back from Roanoke at 10 this morning when Secretary of Public Safety John Marshall called and told me,“ said Nutter, adding that he had no chance to debate the closing.

“When they call you at 10 a.m. and the governor’s announcement is at 11, there’s no room for negotiation. They’re telling you what they’re going to do.“ Nutter said the loss of 62 jobs might seem small, but it’s significant for the area.

“In Pulaski, we’re approaching 9 percent unemployment. This comes at a particularly hard time.“ Nutter said he is also concerned that the state might not have enough space in its other minimum-security prisons to handle the 425 inmates from Pulaski.

Traylor said that as of the end of August, the department had 12,460 employees, some 7,136 of them corrections officers—the men and women on the front lines in prisons. The vacancy rate for the corrections officers was just under 9 percent, he said.

Other facilities to close are the White Post Detention Center near Winchester, 10 jobs; the Chatham Diversion center, 20 jobs; the Tazewell Field Unit, 22 jobs; and the Dinwiddie Field Unit, 23 jobs.

Other cutbacks include: less money for inmate drug treatment and counseling; delaying the spending of $7 million for planning a new prison in Charlotte County; and the elimination of 11 day-reporting sites used by some of the department’s 60,000 probationers and parolees.

“Obviously, we’re trying to figure out the best way to make a lot of this happen as quickly and efficiently as possible,“ Traylor said. “With that in mind, we hope to implement all of these strategies by January 25.“

State prisons hold 33,300 inmates at an annual average cost of $22,830 each. Because offenders are being sent to prison for longer terms, officials have said the system might have to add a new prison a year to keep up.

Meanwhile, some existing facilities are crowded and, like the inmate population, aging in expensive ways.

Almost two-thirds of the more than 50 state correctional facilities are 20 to 65 years old. A total of $159 million in maintenance, repair work and additional construction is needed systemwide, but as of last month, only $70 million was available in the department’s budget, according to a department report.

At the 56-year-old Powhatan Correctional Center and the nearby Powhatan Reception Center, there are now $45 million in maintenance needs. Officials said all but the most critical repairs have been halted, given the possibility a new prison can be built to replace it.

Five dormitory-style, medium-security prisons—the Coffeewood, Dillwyn, Lunenburg, Indian Creek and Haynesville correctional centers—built more than a decade ago to hold 600 to 800 inmates now hold 1,000 to 1,200.

Nevertheless, to help out in the current budget crunch, the department is holding 300 inmates from Wyoming in a $7.2 million annual contract that runs through June 20, 2010, and 130 inmates from the U.S. Virgin Islands at $75.35 a day each.

Also, earlier cuts mean a $32 million, 800-bed expansion project at the St. Bride’s Correctional Center in Hampton Roads will remain unopened and the Richmond Women’s Detention Center will be combined with one in Chesterfield County. The Richmond property would then be sold.
Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .

Staff writers Rex Bowman and Bill Geroux contributed to this report.