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Schools, other entities lose free inmate labor
by Jule Hubbard
A program that provides government, schools and other public entities in Wilkes County with tens of thousands of hours of free labor annually ends Tuesday due to state budget cuts.
Two crews from the Wilkes Correctional Center in North Wilkesboro, with eight inmates per crew, worked nearly 30,000 hours in 2008 alone as part of the N.C. Department of Correction's Community Work Program. One correctional officer per crew supervises them.
Even if the inmates were being paid as little as $6 per hour, which they're not, that's nearly $180,000 worth of labor. It's mostly general maintenance, ranging from spreading mulch and other landscape work at Wilkes schools to remodeling a room in the North Wilkesboro Police Station.
The program "makes a huge difference. I personally, and I know the schools also, will miss it dearly," said Bergie Speaks, head of maintenance for the Wilkes County schools.
Speaks said much of the labor intensive, time consuming work completed through the program would now likely go undone or require the hiring of private contractors.
The inmates helped move furniture from Union Elementary when it was closed a few years ago and helped renovate North Wilkesboro Elementary this summer by tearing out partitions, removing debris and other work.
"They've painted the big majority of our schools at one time or another," said Speaks.
He said inmates in the program were good workers and seemed to appreciate being able to do the work. Correctional officers with each crew often work alongside inmates, Speaks added.
Except for a few days when schools are closed during the academic year, all of the program's work for schools is in the summer because state law prohibits inmates from being on campus when students are nearby.
Speaks said the only challenge was sometimes in scheduling times and places of summer athletic and marching band camps to comply with this law.
Wilkes Correctional Center inmates in the program have also worked on projects for Wilkes County government and the Town of Wilkesboro, as well as at Stone Mountain State Park, Mount Jefferson State Park, Rendezvous Mountain State Educational Forest and along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Bobby Harless, superintendent of the Wilkes Correctional Center, said actual daily pay is 70 cents per inmate, plus eligible inmates can work off prison time down to 85 percent of their original sentences.
Harless said three correctional officer positions at the Wilkes Correctional Center, which was one per Community Work crew plus an extra to fill in as needed, were lost with elimination of the program. He said his prison already had three vacant positions so no one actually lost a job.
Although state law still gives the school system and other entities the option of paying the N.C. Department of Correction $150 per eight-man crew per day for inmate labor, Harless said he's not sure how this can be done with the loss of the three positions. He said his prison vans used to transport Community Work inmates also could be lost.
Dr. Steve Laws, Wilkes school superintendent, said that because of the importance of the inmate labor to the Wilkes schools, he favored paying the $150.
Harless said the option of paying $1 per inmate per day for prison labor also still remains, but supervision of inmates while they work must be provided by the entity that hires them. A contract is required and people who provide the supervision must meet certain requirements for training as custodial agents.
He said the governments of Alexander County and Taylorsville have these contracts with the Wilkes Correctional Center.
Harless agreed with Wilkes school officials about the importance of the Community Work program and said the negative response statewide to ending the program has raised questions about what would happen now.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's the best program we have" because of the savings it provides for taxpayers, he said. It also helps inmates develop a positive self-image and is good for public relations in the community, he added.
He said the program costs the N.C. Department of Correction about $38,000 to $40,000 annually per eight-man crew. He said this primarily included pay for the time of correctional officers with each crew, transportation and insurance.
The local state prison unit had five eight-man crews in the Community Work Program for several years after it was started in the mid-1990s.
He said that in addition to the two Community Work crews, the Wilkes Correctional Center has three crews that pick up roadside litter for the N.C. Department of Transportation. He said the litter cleanup crews would remain because that program receives DOT funds.
Harless said there are now 127 of Community Work crews statewide, all at state minimum custody prisons like the one in North Wilkesboro.
The Wilkes Correctional Center, with 262 inmates and 63 employees, isn't among eight state prisons slated for closure, said Harless. |
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