Employees in one Alabama prison earned $2.9 million in overtime last year

Donaldson Correctional Institution

Prisoners lie and sit in their bunks during a head count at the Donaldson Correctional Institution in 2002.

(Mark Almond)

Of $20.8 million in overtime paid by the Alabama Department of Corrections last year, 14 percent went to one prison, records show.

Employees at Donaldson Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison reserved for some of the state's most violent inmates, received about $2.9 million in overtime last year. That's an average of about $8,873 per employee.

AL.com obtained the overtime records from the Alabama Department of Finance as part of its investigation into the state's prisons. From 2000 to 2012, spending on corrections has more than doubled, from $173.5 million to $373.5 million.

Despite the rising budget, the state system continues to operate well below authorized staffing levels. Even as most prisons use overtime to plug holes, Donaldson stands out. Donaldson's overtime costs exceeded the prison with the second most amount of overtime, St. Clair Correctional Center, by about $1.1 million.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, employees at Hamilton Aged and Infirmed, a prison that houses elderly and sick inmates, received $65,236 in overtime last year, the least amount of overtime paid to employees for all the major prisons.

Donaldson Warden Cheryl Price was tight-lipped when asked about Donaldson's hefty overtime bill.

"Security is always first and foremost for us," Price told AL.com, before declining further comment.

The cost of dangerous inmates

Kristi Gates, ADOC spokeswoman, tied Donaldson's pricey overtime costs to its troubled inmates.

Originally opened as the West Jefferson Correctional Facility in October 1982, Donaldson specializes in housing repeat violent offenders with lengthy sentences and hundreds of inmates who are serving life without parole. The Bessemer prison has a 300-inmate segregation unit, designed to host the worst offenders, and a death row with a capacity for 24 inmates.

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Donaldson would need about one officer for every six inmates to adequately staff the prison, Gates wrote in an email. Currently, Donaldson has about 176 correctional officers assigned to 1,481 inmates, for an 8.4 to 1 inmate-to-officer ratio.

However, an increase in the number of officers working overtime shifts boosts the number of onsite officers to 216, creating a 6.9 to 1 officer-to-inmate ratio, she wrote.

"ADOC uses overtime to supplement chronic staffing shortages at virtually all of our facilities," Gates wrote.

For years, Donaldson employees have received the largest chunk of the ADOC's overtime pay. The Birmingham News reported in April 2004 that Donaldson employees received $2.4 million in overtime in 2003 – about 16 percent of the total that the ADOC paid that year.

Less overtime elsewhere

A prison such as Limestone Correctional Facility, which features a farming and cattle operation as well as prisoner re-entry, is safer and requires less correctional officers, Gates wrote. Employees at the prison made $1.1 million in overtime last year, and the ratio for required staffing at Limestone is seven inmates per correctional officer.

Currently, Limestone has 239 correctional officers assigned to 2,263 inmates for a 9.5 to 1 inmate-to officer ratio, Gates wrote. Add in overtime shifts, and the number of working correctional officers jumps to 254, creating a 8.9 to 1 inmate-to-officer ratio

Limestone Warden Dewayne Estes declined to comment.

David Wise, now retired, worked from 1997 to 2007 as a deputy warden at Limestone. He called Limestone "the best place to do time" in Alabama. Likewise, it is one of the best big prisons to work inside.

"It's just the culture," Wise said.

Having worked as a lieutenant at Donaldson for six months in 1987, Wise called Donaldson "extremely rough."

"The reason they use more overtime, too, I think is because it's just a stressful environment," Wise said. "You have more folks calling in and staying out sick."

2013 ADOC overtime numbers