Audit: State paying more overtime for guards due to DOJ suit

By The Associated Press

news@abc6.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ An audit has found that the state paid its prison guards $1.5 million more in overtime than planned because of a hiring freeze prompted by a federal lawsuit over how correctional officers are hired.

The state’s auditor general found a deficit in the Department of Corrections budget for fiscal 2014 and attributed it primarily to overtime expenses due to staffing shortages in the correctional officer ranks.     

The audit, released this month, notes that the shortages are the result of the department delaying a new training class because of the discrimination lawsuit filed last year by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Staffing shortages are a recurring problem for the department but overtime costs had been dropping.

The department says it paid a total of $18.3 million for overtime in 2014.

© The Associated Press / WLNE-TV 2015