During a search of the salaries of employees on the Sacramento Bee’s website, a certain CMC employee’s paycheck is now under scrutiny.
Registered nurse Jean Keller has earned over $819,000 starting from the year 2008 until 2010. California Correctional Health Care Services stated that Keller has her salary tripled last year with overtime pay.
Based on a Bloomberg report, she has had a lump 2450 hours worth of overtime.
Being a registered nurse at the California Men’s Colony, Jean Keller is assigned at the administrative segregation where she provides treatment for inmates who have psychiatric issues. These patients have often been violent to other inmates as well as to the staff.
CEO of CMC’s Health Care Services Ted Fox stated that the group of people that one has to deal with can be quite a challenge.
A tough job, it seems, but no doubt with a great pay.
Just last year, Keller’s earnings have reached $269, 810, tripling her earnings with overtime.
This, as the state of California has doled out $1.7 billion solely in extra pay in the year 2010. For the most part it was for overtime, based on the State Controller’s Office.
Last Monday, we inquired of Fox whether or not $270,000 in compensation was apt for a nurse in CMC, to which Fox replied with the answer that he has lost track of the nursing salaries in private sectors at this time, but certainly it wasn’t that amount, yet in the private sector, to which he has been a CEO for 15 long years, floor nurses can be around that make even more than what middle management nurses make for the due to the accrual of overtime.
He also added that the bargaining agreement that they have necessitates CMC to provide overtime to its employees that have the most seniority. He said that Jean has been able and willing to provide them with help and that her name appears on that seniority list.
Fox continued to go on that also another big factor was days of leave of absence. He stated that they have been quite difficult to backfill. For the short term, they might have helped cut off on the expenses of the state, however, the long term estimates are drab. Based on a report in 2009 Furloughs in Round the Clock Operations, or the Senate Rules Committee, it was revealed that Furloughs are estimated to raise expenses within the prison health care system this year roughly by about $37 million to $47 million.
According to Fox, both employees and management alike have prioritized staffing improvements. He said that they have branded out some issues and in fact have already witnessed improvements in the absences of nurses as well as in mandatory overtime.
