Federal receiver Robert Sillen, the official appointed to revamp medical care in California prisons, went to court September 12th in an effort to force the Department of Personnel Administration to significantly increase the salary of prison health care personnel. Both rank-and-file employees and managers and supervisors will be impacted.
The federal receiver in charge of fixing California's prison health care system asked a judge Tuesday to bypass the bureaucracy in Sacramento and grant $24 million in raises to medical workers in order to attract more of them to the state's penal institutions.
Saying he was skeptical of the state's excuses for inaction on salary adjustments, receiver Robert Sillen asked U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to raise pay by up to 64 percent.
Without responding to the expressions of frustration that laced Sillen's legal motion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said it would continue working with him in a "spirit of cooperation."
Schwarzenegger spokesman Bill Maile said Sillen and the governor recently had "a positive meeting, and the governor very much appreciated the information and ideas that were shared."
Sillen's "motion for a waiver of state law" was his first exercise of muscle since Henderson last winter hired him to bring the prison medical system into compliance with constitutional standards for humane care. A judicial order at the time specified that if the state put up legal or other roadblocks, Sillen should ask Henderson to set them aside.
Sillen on Tuesday told Henderson that staffing vacancies -- 44 percent among X-ray technicians, for example, and 42 percent among pharmacists -- are crippling his efforts.
He said the proposed pay increases would save the state money by eliminating nonstaff contract workers who cost California $90 million in the last fiscal year. Their pay typically is double that of salaried employees.
Sillen's motion followed weeks of negotiations with the administration, which cited collective bargaining and legislative consent rules in declining to take action on its own.
It all but invited a court order.
"Moving forward with implementing your request unilaterally, without the benefit of a court order, is uncertain at best and brings with it risks and challenges that may not be easily overcome," Cabinet Secretary Fred Aguiar wrote Sillen two weeks ago. "These legal questions and uncertainties could easily be averted if the court were to issue an order directing the salary changes."
Key labor organizations were solidly behind Sillen, however. In correspondence with him the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees blamed the state Department of Personnel Administration for obstructing reforms.
The Union of American Physicians and Dentists also supported Sillen, saying the problem of low salaries is compounded by the "difficult work locations and poor reputation (of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) as an employer."
Under Sillen's motion, physicians and surgeons would get no across-the-board pay raise, but the receiver would have a discretionary fund from which to raise salaries by up to 100 percent after evaluating the doctors individually.
The biggest raises -- 63 to 64 percent -- would go to pharmacists, who currently are paid half the market wage, according to Sillen. The vacancy rate among prison pharmacists in California is 42 percent.
Henderson ordered some interim pay raises before putting Sillen in charge. Sillen said they were effective in reducing vacancies. For example, the shortage of registered nurses was 39 percent last November and dropped to 15 percent after an 18 percent pay raise in December.
Sacramento Bee
September 13, 2006