Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 21, 2017.
Remember when you moved out of your college apartment, and probably because your mother told you to, you vacuumed one last time and checked to make sure nothing was spoiling in the refrigerator?
Gov. Sam Brownback did the equivalent of that final cleanup last week when he told Secretary of Corrections Joe Norwood to start the paperwork to give raises of 10 percent to correctional officers at El Dorado Correctional Facility, the state’s biggest prison…and, oh yes, 5 percent to uniformed correctional officers at the state’s other prisons.
Those raises, which are aimed at boosting employment at El Dorado where there were some relatively moderate convict uprisings last month and throwing a bone to the officers at other facilities, will cost a few million dollars, and he agreed with leaders of the House and Senate that the budget touch-ups that will be required to balance the Corrections budget will be taken care of next session.