COMMITTEE TO SEEK HIGHER SALARY FOR PRISON GUARDS

Recent killing of officer seen as impetus for reform

Less than a week after an inmate killed a guard, the Texas prison system
announced it will form a special committee to lobby for higher salaries for
the corrections officers, whose pay lags far behind the national average.

Allan B. Polunsky, chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, formed
the three-member committee Thursday, saying prison guards badly need a
raise.

Texas, which has the second-largest state prison system behind California,
ranks 46th in the nation in pay.

The first-year salary for a correctional officer is $21,744 a year. The 1998
national average was $22,300. After 2 1/2 years, a guard's salary maxes out
at $26,724, compared with the national average of $34,404, according to the
Corrections Yearbook.

As early as next week the committee -- Mac Stringfellow, of San Antonio;
Alfred Moran, of Fort Worth; and Hank Moody, of Washington, all members of
the criminal justice board -- will begin meeting with legislators to lobby
for pay raises.

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said there simply
isn't enough money in TDCJ's current budget for raises, which must be
approved by the Legislature.

"Although its a large budget, it's a tight budget," Larry Fitzgerald said.
"We will need them to appropriate more money. It's something we're going to
work with the leaders of the Legislature on."

A week ago Friday, officer Danny Nagle, 37, was stabbed at the McConnell
Unit, near Beeville. A guards union blamed his death and the subsequent
disturbance at the prison on understaffing.

At the end of October, Texas prisons were 1,729 officers short of the
full-staff level of 25,930.

Fitzgerald acknowledged that the stabbing played a role in Polunsky's
decision.

If the formation of a committee to lobby legislators was intended to pass
the heat on to the Capitol, Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, was not upset.

Ogden, whose district includes 23 prisons and about 30 percent of TDCJ's
employees, said he believed prison-system pay raises would be a significant
issue during the next session.

"I'm 100 percent convinced the guards deserve a pay raise," Ogden said
Friday. "But they're not the only state employees that have salary problems.
A lot of our employees are being paid at levels where it might not be
attractive to them to stay."

Earlier this month, guards marched on the Capitol asking Gov. George W. Bush
to call a special session to give them more pay.

According to other guards who attended, Nagle talked about understaffing at
the rally, where he reportedly said, "It is going to take somebody's death
to get people to change this situation."

Despite the rally however, Ogden and others said the pay issue would likely
not be addressed before the Legislature reconvenes in January, 2001.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.