DOC investigating assault on CO at St. Cloud MCF

KSTP is reporting:

December 27, 2018 04:34 PM

The Minnesota Department of Corrections is investigating an assault that occurred Thursday morning at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-St. Cloud.

According to a statement from the department, a corrections officer was assaulted in the dining hall at the facility. The statement said three other officers were injured while responding to the assault. 

FULL STORY

The Incoming HCSO Sheriff Hutch Administration

Incoming HCSO Sheriff Hutch has announced his administrative team. He has picked some very good people for the Chief Deputy and Major positions.

Tracey Martin-Chief Deputy

Bob Staupe- Commander Enforcement Services Bureau

Jeffrey Storms (current Chief Deputy) - Commander Administrative Services Bureau

Patrick King- Commander of the Investigations Bureau

Source - Star Tribune

I think he's made some solid choices. People with experience in the HCSO most of whom worked their way up from the bottom.

Best of luck to all.

Workplace email, or how to get fired!

We live in an electronic age. Everyone is connected by phone, email, texts, social media, &c.

Everyone working as a Detention Deputy or CO is aware of the Sheriff's Office/County email policy.

Every once in a while someone gets pinched using county email for personal use, or worse outside business use.

A 17 year Ramsey County Sheriff's Department employee went astray of the County Policy and was fired. He appealed his firing through Arbitration.

This ended up in Arbitration BMS Case 18-PA-0261 Hendrickson Discharge.

Allegation:

*Grievant received racist, sexist and pornographic emails on employer email without objection.
*Conducted his outside business using his Ramsey County email address.
*Grievant worked for a Security Company for 6 years without employer permission.
*Grievant violated MN Data Practices Act

Defense:

*Long time employee with good discipline record, even was promoted to Sergeant.
*The emails were sent while grievant was on Workers Comp and NOT opened at work.
*Most of the emails were forwarded and/or not opened on the Employer's system.
*County could stop receipt of outside email by using filters.
*Grievant thought he was forwarding Data Practice protected information to Law Enforcement.

Decision:

Termination upheld by the Arbitrator.


Bottom line, employer email is employer email. Even if accessed offsite!

Hold on to your Wallet!

Recently many of you (and me) received a letter from the MMRA (Minnesota Municipal Retirement Association).

They talked about "cuts" to your pension's COLA from 2.5% to 1%, but for $5 a month they would fight for your raise!

This sounded like a money making scam to me so I contacted them and asked what they were doing for PERA Correctional Plan members. The response was, " MMRA is restricted to represent only PERA General members. "

Fact: the PERA Correctional Plan cost of living raise is still 2.5%. 

This raises several questions.

1. Why did they send this to PERA Correctional Plan members?
2. How did they get our addresses?
3. Why are they soliciting money from the PERA Correctional Plan members?

The 'why' seems to be a way to scam people into paying $5 a month for nothing!

How they got the addresses is a mystery. PERA does not give those out. My guess, a former Union of ours (not MNPEA) sold them the addresses.

The 'why solicit' is it's just a way to skim money from people they will never assist.

To sum this up. The PERA Correctional Plan's COLA is 2.5%. The MMRA does not lobby for you.
Why should any retiree have to pay someone to 'protect' the pension they paid into for years?
That is your Union's job. 

Of course we know Teamsters, AFSCME and LELS were perfectly happy to reduce  the PERA Correctional Plan to 1.5%. Only MNPEA fought the cut, and won.

So if you received this letter from MMRA, throw it away!

Hennepin County Board Considering cuts to Jail!

According to this Star Tribune article the Board is considering cutting $2 million from the Sheriff's Office.

Outgoing Commissioner Peter McLaughlin initially proposed cutting 9 Detention Deputies from the jail! Apparently assaults on Corrections/Detention Deputy staff recently in the news don't matter. After all those years in Office you'd think he realized the DOC requires a staff to inmate ratio.

"Much of the overtime expenses comes from jail staffing when inmate populations run high. While the numbers have declined in recent months, the jail had record inmate levels last spring.

“The study found that the jail is now down to its functional capacity and we can keep those numbers down,” said McLaughlin. “The new budget numbers reflects that we don’t need funding for a full jail.”

The number of jail beds available daily is 755, and Stanek said the jail staffs for 680 inmates. On Monday there were 780 inmates, so he had to force deputies to work overtime “because you just can’t say the inn is closed.”  - Star Tribune

I love McLaughlin's quote that, "we can keep those numbers down...we don't need funding for a full jail." Is the Board planning on putting a cap on arrests in Hennepin County?

For years I've advocated for the Jail to be staffed 100 % by Detention Deputies. Much money could be saved by eliminating the use of higher paid Licensed Deputies and their higher rate overtime in the jail. Not to mention training and POST costs.

Incoming Sheriff Hutch wants the Board to hold off on cuts until he gets the lay of the land.

This will be an interesting fight. Both the new County Board and the Minneapolis City Council seem to be farther to the political Left. They both seem to be anti-law enforcement.

Something to watch. The Sheriff Office is a Constitutional Office which requires funding. Not like the tent city local government has no trouble throwing money at.

http://www.startribune.com/sheriff-rich-stanek-irked-lame-duck-county-commissioner-cutting-budget/501933522/