Considering the problems revealed during recent legislative hearings in Topeka, it’s no surprise that vacancy rates for corrections officers at Kansas prisons are ranging between 10 percent and 20 percent.

Low wages, physical attacks and long hours are making prison guards hard to hire and harder to retain. It’s a dangerous situation that cries out for attention in the upcoming legislative session.

Rebecca Proctor, interim director of the Kansas Association of State Employees testified recently to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Pensions, Investments and Benefits. The committee may consider legislation that would standardize pension benefits for Department of Corrections employees, but Proctor said the first priority should be to address wages for correctional officers. Dealing with pensions is fine, she said, but because of low salaries and poor working conditions, most corrections officers leave their jobs long before they would qualify for pension benefits.

For instance, Proctor cited a June 10 incident in which guards at the Lansing Correctional facility were physically attacked by inmates resulting in injuries that included one guard having a chunk of his forehead bitten off. In another incident, a guard at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility was stabbed 13 times with a plastic knife including one wound that punctured his lungs. In yet another case, Topeka Correctional Facility officers were informed that they would have to work two consecutive shifts (16 hours straight) because there was no staff to relieve them.

And for all their trouble, correctional officers at Kansas institutions receive a starting salary of $13.61 an hour, about $28,000 a year. Is it any wonder there is heavy turnover in these jobs?

Many departing officers likely seek employment in other fields but those who want to continue as corrections officers can move to higher paying jobs at federal prisons, where the starting pay is $39,000 a year, or at many county jails where wages are higher than those paid by the state.

Conversation at the legislative hearing focused on pension benefits and the possibility that prison guards might have to give up some of those benefits in exchange for salary increases. The good news is that legislators acknowledged the need to boost guard salaries, but the pension trade-offs to accomplish that might not be acceptable to employees.

State employees and legislators must work together to resolve this issue. High turnover and a high job vacancy rate compromises the safety and efficiency of the state’s correctional institutions. The low wages currently being paid to officers in these demanding and potentially dangerous jobs are an embarrassment to the state. Even with all the financial demands currently facing the state, this situation demands immediate attention.