CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS NEED PAY RAISES, TOO

Editor's note: This is a copy of a letter sent to Representative Scott
Jensen, R-Waukesha:

Representative Jensen, I am sending you this e-mail from my first computer
(used), that I was able to purchase on payments from a kind gentleman who
understands that it is quite difficult to keep up with the rising cost of
living and give my daughter a nice Christmas when I haven't received a
raise in over two years. I am a single mother who works as a correctional
officer at Dodge Correctional. I pride myself in my job and in providing
for my 8-year-old daughter, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult
to provide even the basics when everything is rising except my pay. I am
greatly disappointed that last week I was seeing the light at the end of
the tunnel, and yesterday you shut it off.

How is your personal budget? Are you struggling to make your payments on a
mobile home? Do you worry about how high you turn your heat on, because
you're afraid of the gas bill? Are you driving an 8-year-old car because
it' s paid for and you can't afford new car payments even with the 0
percent financing? Are you really in need of that 3 percent raise you're
receiving no matter what I have to say about it?

I'm sure that I could put this much more eloquently if I wasn't so upset by
this news, however maybe this is just the way you need to hear it. You sit
there in your cushy office and make decisions that affect people you have
never even met nor know anything about, and tell the public that I don't
need a raise, and certainly not one as big as you yourself are getting. I'd
like to see you work one day in a prison and try not to think about what
kind of people you are overseeing. You know ... multiple murderers,
rapists, men who hate women (especially women in an authority position),
baby rapers, psychotics, drug addicts ... the type of people you have
probably never seen except on the news from your lounge chair.

Hoping to see that light come back on,

Erica M. Schneider

Fond du Lac