Thursday's news that a jury awarded close to $114 million in unpaid/overtime compensation to corrections officers left us speechless.
Apparently, it also left the Missouri Department of Corrections speechless; they're not talking about it.
We reported on Thursday a lawsuit filed Aug. 14, 2012, accused the department of requiring corrections officers throughout the state to do work before and after assigned shifts without being paid for that mandated work.
In a trial held before Cole County Presiding Judge Pat Joyce, a jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs Wednesday, finding the DOC had breached its agreements with the corrections officers, and awarded the hefty price tag.
The state almost certainly will appeal, and anything can happen in an appeal.
But in the court of public opinion, it's one more indication of problems within the department.
In the suit, several corrections officers and sergeants from state prisons across Missouri testified that the DOC required them to perform pre- and post-shift work but refused to pay them for it.
The lawsuit was filed six years ago, and the allegations stem from farther back than that. The governor, department director and other state leaders have changed since.
But have they corrected the problems in corrections? Consider:
Last June, news broke that a Missouri Parole Board member and a Corrections department employee were making a farce out of parole hearings.
The Department of Corrections said Donald Ruzicka, a Missouri Parole Board member who, reportedly, admits concocting a word game played during questioning in parole hearings, resigned. Ruzicka, a Republican, is a former state representative from Mount Vernon. He and the employee, who was not named, played the game on occasions in hearings throughout summer 2016, according to findings in a report.
An investigation by a Kansas City weekly newspaper last year found a culture in Corrections of sexual harassment, racial discrimination and harassment by co-workers - and retaliation by supervisors for speaking out. It examined more than 60 lawsuits against the department and also found the state spent more than $7.5 million on settlements and judgments between 2012 and 2016, related to the allegations.
In April, an Associated Press story said Missouri has paid out nearly $600,000 to a female corrections officer to settle another sexual harassment lawsuit.
The department also is struggling to maintain staffing for corrections officers, and inmates at some prisons have had riots or near-riots in recent months.
If the Department of Corrections wants to gain back trust from the public, it needs to address its problems and do so publicly.
Central Missouri Newspapers