By Dee J. Hall and Steven Verburg
The Wisconsin State Journal
MADISON, Wisc. — Six Department of Corrections wardens got new assignments and pay raises of between 8 percent and 13 percent beginning this week, DOC records show, while correctional officers working for them got 1 percent raises.
Another official, a deputy warden, was promoted to warden, earning a 26 percent pay boost, according to the records obtained by Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees’ Union, and provided to the State Journal.
An eighth warden, Bob Humphreys, head of the Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Institution, was transferred but got no raise. Humphreys was appointed warden of Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution.
The raises and new assignment bring the salaries of all eight wardens up to $99,996 a year, or $48.075 an hour.
The eight were involved in a shuffling of top leadership at several Wisconsin correctional institutions, according to a March 10 email from DOC secretary Ed Wall to agency employees provided by Beil. The changes took effect Monday.
“All of these dedicated and talented leaders bring many years of experience as well as fresh perspectives to their new assignments,” Wall wrote to his employees.
DOC spokeswoman Joy Staab said in an emailed statement that the salaries of wardens and deputy wardens “has historically been significantly lower than similar career executive positions” in state government.
“DOC made the decision to set the current pay rate for wardens more than a year ago in an effort to make their pay more equivalent to other comparable leadership positions,” she wrote. “In accordance with this decision, all warden transfers and promotions in the past year were placed at the new rate.”
The records show the largest pay increase went to Reed Richardson, who got a nearly $10-an-hour raise, or 26 percent. Wall said Richardson, deputy warden at Jackson Correctional Institution, was promoted to warden at Stanley Correctional Institution.
Beil said that normally if a state agency believes pay is out of line for certain jobs, it asks the state Office of State Employee Relations to conduct a survey, which gives the agency benchmarks for changing pay rates.
“With this, they just unilaterally shuffled the wardens around without any rationale or any benchmarks,” Beil said. “This is another one of these back-door pay increases out of the view of the public, and it’s horrible.”
Brian Cunningham, president of the Wisconsin Association for Correctional Law Enforcement union, said the wardens’ raises are out of scale with the 1 percent raises that most state employees got.
“The boss takes care of himself before he takes care of his men. What kind of a hypocritical position is that?” he asked. “There are no checks and balances anymore.”
In fact, Cunningham said, his take-home pay has decreased because of increases in employee-paid premiums for health insurance and pension.
Starting pay for correctional officers is about $15 an hour, meaning that an officer is eligible for food stamps and other assistance for the poor if they have a family of four, Cunningham said.
He added that correctional officers have asked the department to conduct wage surveys on their pay, but those calls have not been heeded.