- A package of prison pension bills passed during the lame duck session are currently in limbo.
- The uncertainty surrounding these bills is causing concern among corrections officers.
- Byron Osborn, President of the Michigan Corrections Organization, says adding corrections officers to the state's pension fund will help recruiting and retention efforts.
- Speaker of the House Matt Hall is asking for legal counsel to weigh in on the potential impacts.
For your convenience, the skimmable summary above is generated with the assistance of AI and fact checked by our team prior to publication. Read the full story as originally reported below.
"We've spent a number of years here to bolster support for legislation to make some impactful changes," Michigan Corrections Organization President Bryon said.
Byron Osborn is the Michigan Correction Organization President, representing corrections officers around the state.
"We're coming up on decade here of a significant vacancy rate in the department of corrections," Osborn said.
As your state capitol reporter, I've been covering the prison staffing shortage for months now, hearing from neighbors about how vacancies in the prison systems are requiring correction's officers to work longer hours.
While researching the state corrections budget, I found out the state of Michigan paid over $90 million dollars back in 2023 in overtime to corrections officers around the state.
"That's resulted in exhaustive amounts of mandatory overtime for the corrections officers at many of the facilities which then in turn leads in resignations," Osborn said.
In December, the bills allowing corrections officers to join the Michigan State Police Retirement plan passed both chambers. But now stalled--left in legal limbo.
"I said we need a legal review, we need to look at this very careful, understand the legal ramifications," Speaker of the House Matt Hall said.
Speaker of the House Matt Hall told the House Clerks to hold off sending nine bills, passed by both chambers during the final days of lame duck, to the Governor's desk. Hall said he wants to make sure the process is legal.
"There could be problems with the fact that it could be going to one legislature to another legislature. We just want to get this right," Hall said.
I read over the Michigan constitution regarding bills passed in both chambers.
It says: Every bill passed by the legislature shall be presented to the governor before it becomes law, and the governor shall have 14 days measured in hours and minutes from the time of presentation in which to consider it.
Democratic State Senator Sue Shink advocated for the bills for her neighbors and wants them passed saying quote 'Our corrections officers have waited long enough — they deserve solutions, not political games. I have trust in our constitutional process and expect that this bill will be delivered to Gov. Whitmer's desk.'
Osborn says he hopes the bills are signed as soon as possible so the 5500 corrections officers he says get their support.
"And we're not able to effectively do that if we can't recruit and retain and we can't run safe prisons," Osborn said.
We will be keeping up with the outcome of these bills on air and online.
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