Kentucky has staffing issues as well. The facility I work at had a mandated 12 hour shift 5 days a week. Some Officers worked it 6 days a week. We recently went to 12 hour shift 4 days a week. Those who want to work 5 or 6 days a week can now volunteer instead of being mandated. Staff shortages are the reason for MOT. The cycle list is used based on the last day you 1. worked OT, or called out. If you call out sick, you go to the top of the list and are mandated to work OT.

The bottom line is come to work. I, as a supervisor at a Maximum Security prison in Ohio, dealt with this daily. FMLA is the reason most prisons have to mandate overtime. People do not want to come to work. That causes people who have already worked 8 hours, to be froze for another 8 hours. This causes undo stress. Officers need to weed out the ones who call off due to being LAZY. When they do come to work and their fellow Officers no longer want to be their buddy, it doesn’t take long for the message to come across. There are times when there is no way out of mandated overtime but those times are few and far between.

I got statted of for all three of the last holidays so that personnel who have less than a year in could get good overtime; I got to spend the time with grand children and my children and my husband but they chose to stat me off for people whom have less time in, because it would cost them less; I have 13 years in the service

My union does a rotating MOT list for everyone. Voluntary OT is offered first then it reverts to whoever is currently on duty and has the longest span of time since there last MOT.

I work at a County facility in PA. We have minimum staffing levels that need to be met daily. Every weds. a union representative counts the roster book for the following week, and begins to call for overtime for that following week, attempting to fill all of the openings for said week

If on weds there are overtimes left for lets say Thursday night shift, and Saturday and Sunday days and middles shifts. That overtime vacancy will be called for on the shift prior to the opening. For the thursday night opening it will be called for on thursday middle shift, and they will also offer any other openings through out the week.

The union keeps a call roster of all officers with their home, and cell numbers. If they take an overtime they are marked as such, if they refuse an overtime they are marked for a refusal. The call list is seniority based with the most senior officer getting “first dids” at their choice of voluntary OT. The call list does not reset, but keeps rolling through the year.

Then we also keep a mandate list for the shifts we were not able to fill voluntarily. At the end of each shift an announcment is made offering any available overtime for the up coming shift. If someone volunteers great, if not they go to the mandate list and mandate the person with the next open block. The mandate list is in order of reverse seniority. Once a person is mandated they get their block marked, and it moves up the list to the top. Once everyone on the list has been mandated it resets. Everyone is eligable to be mandated regardless of seniority.

I know this seems confusing to some, but it works well, and it is a fair system for both volunatary and mandated overtime.

The key is it is the unions responsibility to call and fill the OT, an mantain the call lists.

Idaho DOC was, for a while, not allowing overtime and even mandating furlow days. I, however, work for CCA at an Idaho facility and we have mandated OT. Our system works on a rotating roster. When you work OT, you are moved to the bottom of the list which works well when we only need a few per day but it does get quite out of hand at times. Idaho is a “right to work” state so labor laws are pretty much non-existent

Where I work the posted schedule is just a suggested guideline. Working alone, overtime, switching days, it’s all SOP.

Illinois, welcome to the real world of public service. Where the “Powers That Be” will bend, manipulate and change the rules and laws to suit the situation that they find themselves in. Because never forget to them you are just a pay number.

Well, here we are…8 months since my last post in this thread. The law limiting mandates in Illinois has somehow been forgotten….the union doesn’t care….Our institution is back in the habit of 20 or 30 (sometimes more!) mandates a week. I realize some of you have more than that, but I bet your state did not outlaw mandates as a means to staffing a mere year and a half ago! The administration never disappoints.

IW

Hey there all. I’ve been a Corrections Deputy at a county jail In Wa for 12 yrs. We are always understaffed, as such our MOT gets out of control sometimes. Our MOT system does not count seniority. We have 10 deputies working per shift; out of those, who ever was hit with MOT most recently, goes to the bottom of the list. Its not perfect but seems fair enough to me. In Wa, each agency has there own MOT system. Some mando for the entire shift, some mando for half and some base it on seniority.

Our institution runs a madatory list that starts at the beginning of the month and ends on the last day. The lowest senior officer is mandated first unless someone volunteers and even then the OT is given to the most senior volunteer. Seems relatively fair IMHO.

I got hit today.. My 10 days were up. Go figure. But on the bright side it was only for 15 minutes. I’m off the list again.

Yeah we have scheduled short day’s so we don’t go over 80 hrs but if they don’t schedule a short day in that two weeks we will just get straight time for the extra four hours.

I could live with an arragnement like that, kvnstaub.

Where’d you go, Marcus? Working OT?

TX requires you to take time off in the same work cycle but only the same amount of hours you worked over or came in early. So if you worked 4 hrs extra they tell you to come in late 4 hrs the next day instead of 6 hrs. Policy states volunteers will be taken first but that often is not the case.

Marcus, are you saying there is no overtime or are you saying you work overtime and don’t get paid for it?

We dont have mandatory OT we dont have OT at all. I dont know if its legal or not but i work at a county jail in texas and we dont get OT. They tell us that its a miss calculation in there budget estamate. If anyone has any advise help me out.

Sgt Mjr, I feel for you. I don’t know why some of the supervisors have to be such a@U&*^@$oles. I always say “It’s not an adventure, it’s just a job”. I have a nemesis too. Wow…a lot has changed since last I posted on this issue. In Jan of this year Illinois passed a law that basically outlaws mandating as a means to staffing. They can still mandate for call-ins, military weekends, weather emergencies, etc, but they can not use mandating as a source of basic institutional staffing. It is a huge step forward. The union and IDOC negotiated minimum staffing levels for Illinois institutions, and a result hundreds of C/O’s were hired. Just as a guess, our mandates have probably been reduced by 90%.

IW

We’re on a so called “10 Day Wheel” If were mandated for OT we come off the list. When the 10 days is up back on the list. The only problem with it that I see is it’s seniority driven. Those that have quite a bit of seniority never get mandated. As for the volunteers, it all depends on the Captain (who makes the calls, and does the schedule). Most will use every avenue of approach to keep from mandating anyone, but there is one that absolutely refuses to make any calls. When he’s on everyone on the list can just about bet on being mandated. I don’t mind this either seeing that if I get “hit” within 10 days I get paid double time, and he has to answer to his superiors for it. Hey give me the easy $$$.

Yep, IW, it do answer my questions. Those are good points. Thanks! They make sense, and that alone would kill those ideas in Ohio DRC.

Hi Mudflap… I saw the push to outlaw mandating as an effort by the union trying to force the state to staff appropriately. Let’s face it….everybody….McDonalds, WalMart, and the State of Illinois, Department of Corrections, is understaffed. The Illinois Department of Corrections is GROSSLY understaffed, and I think the union was trying to fix that. Like I said, it was a failed effort, but it was honorable. In fact, it actually got a lot of press coverage….but in the end, it failed. My opinion….take the posts that are labeled “mandatory, as needed” (yes, that is a real phrase in IDOC…somebody PLEASE define mandatory for me!!!), man those posts, and take from THOSE posts for med writs, call offs, etc instead of unmanning those posts from the start…IDOC could do away with mandatory overtime. And yes, we have THAT MANY “mandatory, as needed” posts. If that were corrected, that would only leave a blizzard as a way to mandate…go ahead, legislators, I’m on your side. Make that exception.
That is the problem in IDOC. They have reduced staff to critical levels DAILY, relying on THEIR AUTHORITY alone to cover emergency situations. How’s about they make overtime attractive?……..Make it desirable to the ones that want it. I should not belly-ache. I have never in my 8 1/2 years been mandated, but it is purely luck of the draw. At times, there have been dozens of mandates a week, but I have just been in the top 1/3. Does that answer your ?’s??

Hi Mudflap… I saw the push to outlaw mandating as an effort by the union trying to force the state to staff appropriately. Let’s face it….everybody….McDonalds, WalMart, and the State of Illinois, Department of Corrections, is understaffed. The Illinois Department of Corrections is GROSSLY understaffed, and I think the union was trying to fix that. Like I said, it was a failed effort, but it was honorable. In fact, it actually got a lot of press coverage….but in the end, it failed. My opinion….take the posts that are labeled “mandatory, as needed” (yes, that is a real phrase in IDOC…somebody PLEASE define mandatory for me!!!), man those posts, and take from THOSE posts for med writs, call offs, etc instead of unmanning those posts from the start…IDOC could do away with mandatory overtime. And yes, we have THAT MANY “mandatory, as needed” posts. If that were corrected, that would only leave a blizzard as a way to mandate…go ahead, legislators, I’m on your side. Make that exception.
That is the problem in IDOC. They have reduced staff to critical levels DAILY, relying on THEIR AUTHORITY alone to cover emergency situations. How’s about they make overtime attractive?……..Make it desirable to the ones that want it. I should not belly-ache. I have never in my 8 1/2 years been mandated, but it is purely luck of the draw. At times, there have been dozens of mandates a week, but I have just been in the top 1/3. Does that answer your ?’s??

Hey IW. I can’t see how in the world the state could do away with mandatory OT. How did they plan to cover a shift without it? I don’t like mandatory OT but think it’s an unavoidable evil.

Our OT rules have been flopping around the past couple of years. Not too long ago they were mandating the bottom of the pile night after night after night, and then started using a bottom half system similar to what you described with the bottom 2/3. A lot of us who are in the bottom half of the seniority list didn’t like that system because nobody could figure out when they would be hit. Right now, whoever is lowest in seniority gets tagged unless he was froze the night before. Most of us understand and accept that concept.

The system that Mick mentioned sounds good. We’re too small for that to work, though. We have only ten CO’s per shift and if an emergency medical trip goes out the brass has to freeze two to cover. Add a call-off and two people with training that day and we’ve got half a shift frozen. And sometimes we’ll have two emergency trips out at the same time. Add an unexpected situation (like a constant suicide watch) and that’s another CO froze. It isn’t common to have an entire shift froze but it does happen now and again.

Life is good, though. It’s nice to have a job to complain about!

Illinois has a pretty complicated OT system. Over the past year there was a big push to outlaw mandatory overtime. That fizzled out. Volunteers will get OT before mandates. Mandates start at the bottom of the seniority list and work up until the bottom 2/3 of the roster has been mandated, then it goes back to the bottom. So the top 1/3 of the roster generally doesn’t get mandated. The mandates zero out every 30 days, so if there are 10 mandates in 30 days, the next day it goes back to the bottom of the seniority list.

IW

WV will freeze ya over!