How much waste at McHenry County Jail?

How much waste is there at the McHenry County Jail? Economic waste, I mean? Manpower waste? Resources wasted?

It seems that more than a few Corrections Officers (CO) care about this. And I don't mean because they are on the greedy end of the stick. They care about and are concerned about mismanagement and waste which is, of course, out of the sight of the taxpayers (and of County officials, such as the Administrator and the Auditor, who are not employed at the Jail).

How many COs are expecting to earn about $100,000 this year? In what was referred as a "windfall" to me, the reasons stem from mismanagement by administration and supervisors. The waste was described to me as "astronomical".

Let's say that a senior CO is ordered to work overtime (OT) on a holiday. Does he really earn $71/hour for that overtime? And is that plus the holiday pay? I was informed that "regular OT" for a senior officer is almost $54/hour.

Line officers seem to consider it a joke that the administration says those senior officers are needed for overtime, but line think it's a joke. Sometimes the "overtime officer" is assigned to work in a cell block, which means the regular-duty CO sits around and does nothing.

Sick time and vacation time create shortages; however, through resource management and planning, the use of overtime could be sharply curtailed.

One comment to me was that "McHenry County jail staff do more training than the FBI." Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but requiring four firearms training sessions a year, three of which are live fire, could mean a lot of overtime.

Apparently, numerous positions are filled by COs that could be performed by civilians at lower pay rates. Why not send them back to work in the Jail and hire civilians? A CO works Monday through Friday to handle incoming mail. Surely, a civilian could be trained to screen mail and submit only questionable email to a CO for approval. And paying COs to deal with inmate laundry and to order uniforms? Those are clearly civilian jobs. Inmate laundry? Maybe that's a job for an unpaid inmate trustee.

Jailers face the same fears of retribution as do deputies at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department. They are watching the cases of Zane Seipler and Scott Milliman. They only want to do their jobs, do them well and safely, and then go home.

The job must be hard enough, without worrying about how to call attention to waste and mismanagement.