OKLAHOMA CITY\u00a0\u2014 The Oklahoma Department of Corrections became the first state agency Tuesday to join a hiring program for U.S. Army active duty personnel and veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh said it’s uncertain how effective the agency’s low starting salaries will be in recruiting soldiers to help fill a shortage of correctional officers in state prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That’s going to be a real challenge,” Allbaugh told The Associated Press following a formal ceremony at the state Capitol to introduce the program known as the Partnership for Youth Access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allbaugh said correctional officers in the state start as cadets at $12.78 per hour \u2014 lower than other states in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s pretty pitiful. It’s a big issue,” Allbaugh said. He said many other employers offer comparable wages for jobs that do not involve the risks that correctional workers face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“During an eight-hour shift their life is not on the line,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allbaugh said increasing the salaries of Oklahoma’s correctional and probation workers will be a top legislative priority for his agency in the 2017 Oklahoma Legislature that convenes in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PaYS hiring program provides soldiers, recruits and members of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps a guaranteed interview for potential employment during their time in the Army and after discharging. Although 47 private-sector Oklahoma businesses are program partners, the Corrections Department is the first state agency to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allbaugh said soldiers are taught leadership and discipline during their service, qualities correctional officers need “to adapt to adverse situations at a moment’s notice.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’re underemployed in correctional officers. We’re underemployed in probational officers. Getting more and more of these individuals into those classifications will be critical to ensure our state’s safety,” Allbaugh said. A total of 29,000 inmates are currently incarcerated in state-operated and private prisons in Oklahoma, and another 31,000 people are on probation or parole, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gov. Mary Fallin said 30 percent of Oklahoma’s correctional officer positions are vacant and that having an opportunity to employ military personnel will be a way of getting more correctional officers into state prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We want to make sure that our Department of Corrections employees are safe, that our public is safe,” Fallin said. “We also have an obligation to keep our inmates safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We want to do everything we can to help our veterans be very successful,” the governor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lt. Col. Jim Hill, commander of the Army recruiting command in Oklahoma City, said the program will strengthen the Army’s relationship with the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Being part of the PaYS program will allow this agency to become stronger with the quality and the qualified individuals who come out of the U.S. Army,” Hill said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OKLAHOMA CITY\u00a0\u2014 The Oklahoma Department of Corrections became the first state agency Tuesday to join a hiring program for U.S. Army active duty personnel and veterans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2856],"class_list":["post-28894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-transition","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"FGGAABMSQ5AMFMTBBHKO3CGM2A","arc_canonical_url":"\/education-transition\/jobs\/2016\/08\/02\/oklahoma-joins-hiring-program-for-army-personnel-veterans\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n