County to hire more part-timers

CANTON — Hoping to reduce overtime expenses at the county jail, St. Lawrence County legislators Monday agreed to create four new part-time corrections officer jobs.

The action was approved unanimously after Sheriff Kevin M. Wells said he now supports increasing his pool of part-time corrections officers from 10 to 14 at the St. Lawrence County Correctional Facility.

"My opposition to this is no longer there," the sheriff said. "Ultimately, the goal is to reduce the amount of overtime."

In May, county lawmakers agreed to table the resolution because the sheriff wanted time to discuss the issue with the union that represents corrections officers.

At that time, legislators agreed to increase the hourly pay rate from $10 per hour to $14.02 an hour to help expand the number of people interested in applying for part-time corrections officer jobs at the jail.

The part-time jobs don't provide health care or other benefits that are offered to full-time employees. They usually are assigned shifts as needed, such as covering vacations for full-time employees.

Assigning part-time employees to handle some shifts reduces the number of times full-time employees are asked to work overtime, which pays a higher rate.

Because the union won't agree to increase the yearly maximum part-timers are allowed to work from 1,040 hours, the sheriff said he now supports adding extra part-timers.

"I'm going to have part-timers hit the ceiling on how many hours they can work," Mr. Wells said. "The bargaining unit has no desire to lift that ceiling. I've talked to them and encouraged them."

The sheriff said he believes the higher hourly wage will help widen the pool of candidates interested in the part-time jobs.

Legislator Vernon D. "Sam" Burns, D-Ogdensburg, asked whether the sheriff's department was making progress on reducing overtime expenses.

"Our overtime costs have gone down the last couple of months," Mr. Wells said. "Our overtime expenses are driven by two major factors: hospital stays and suicide watches."

Those scenarios require extra manpower, particularly suicide watches, which require having one corrections officer assigned solely to supervising the suicidal inmate, he said.

"Those situations are not built into our regular staffing and there's no way around it," Mr. Wells said. "We do everything we can to control it, but there are just a couple of things we can't control."

He said he's in the process of canvassing eligible candidates for the part-time corrections jobs and he expects to have a larger pool to choose from than in the past.