Colorado’s prison guard overtime explodes by $9 million annually
Legislation that turned a shuttered prison in rural Fort Lyon into a facility to aid the state’s homeless included provisions that have escalated overtime costs for Colorado’s prison guards by $9 million annually, a legislative analysis has found.
Prior to passage of the legislation, the Corrections Department computed overtime for corrections officers using a 28-day work period.
The legislation, sponsored and pushed by leading Democratic legislators, ended up shortening those work periods to 14 days. It further required overtime pay when hours worked by a corrections officer exceeded 85 hours in a 14-day work period and when officers worked 12 or more hours in a 24-hour period.
Flames and smoke emerge from the 20th floor of the Strand apartment building near Times Square, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014 in New York. Authorities say two people have been critically injured in the three-alarm high-rise fire. (AP Photo/Katherine Bourbeau)