A labor union representing Federal Bureau of Prisons workers at United States Penitentiary, Thomson in Illinois is urging agency leaders to extend employee bonuses amid chronic staffing shortages at the facility.

USP Thomson, which until recently was a high-security prison before it was downgraded, secured a 25% retention pay increase with the approval of the Office of Personnel Management in 2021, a move that was backed by several Illinois democrats, including Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin.

That incentive, which is being reviewed for other BOP facilities across the country to help recruit and retain employees, is currently in effect but expires for Thomson on Dec. 31, a bureau spokesperson told Federal Times.

“Beyond this, we have no additional information to provide,” the official said.

The bureau, which is a component of the larger U.S. Department of Justice, said other changes finalized in August should help alleviate Thomson’s dependency on mandatory overtime and substitution of non-custody employees to custody posts.

However, union leaders with the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents nearly 30,000 prison workers, said they’re aware of efforts to cut Thomson’s pay incentive, undoing progress made by recruitment drives and operational changes.

“Over 33% of our current staff have already written to the union stating that they will have to leave Thomson federal prison if Director [Colette] Peters’ cuts are implemented,” said Jon Zumkher, president of AFGE local 4070, which represents 450 correctional officers. “This is at a time when our officers remain on the front-line working day in and out without fail, placing themselves in harm’s way.”

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Brandy Moore White, who heads AFGE’s national Council of Prison Locals, has said that across the network of facilities, high attrition is a concern that affects employees’ morale but also the ability of prisons to ensure there is adequate personnel to ensure day-to-day operations can be maintained.

Part of the issue is that there are different ways the bureau measures manpower — all of which offer different snapshots. The bureau keeps data on how many current staff there are versus how many positions are budgeted for appropriations purposes, but also tracks inmate-to-officer ratios and use of overtime and temporary staff.

“For its part, BOP does not do nearly enough to resolve the question of adequate staffing since none of its three methods of calculating systemwide staffing needs provide an especially complete or satisfying answer,” according to a 2022 report by Right on Crime, a conservative campaign of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-partisan public policy nonprofit. “A staff shortfall at BOP could degrade facility safety, increase employee burnout and health risks, and impair inmate rehabilitation efforts.”

In fiscal 2023, the bureau put forward a number of recruitment initiatives, including referral bonuses, sign-on bonuses, quicker hiring timelines and ongoing monthly recruitment events, according to the agency.

The Associated Press found nearly a third of federal correctional officer positions were vacant in 2021.

Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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