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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) – Amid the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and idiosyncratic shortages, Florida lawmakers adjacent week volition see proposals to inject astir $100 cardinal into nursing homes and boost the wage of authorities correctional officers.
The Joint Legislative Budget Commission, a sheet of House and Senate members that tin marque mid-year fund decisions, is slated to instrumentality up the issues during a gathering Thursday.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration has projected providing $99.5 cardinal successful authorities and national wealth to nursing homes implicit a three-month play done accrued Medicaid outgo rates.
In a petition to the Legislature, the bureau said the wealth would assistance nursing homes “in their existent fiscal situation caused by important occupancy declines and a choky labour marketplace with expanding wages and shortage of unit resources.”
Meanwhile, the authorities Department of Corrections is asking the legislative sheet to motion disconnected connected closing the New River Correctional Institution successful Bradford County and shutting down 73 dorms astatine different facilities passim the state.
Savings would beryllium utilized to supply higher wage and bonuses to correctional workers.
The situation strategy has agelong struggled with debased wage and precocious turnover among employees.
Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, has pushed to consolidate prisons arsenic a mode to escaped up wealth that could spell to idiosyncratic pay.
In a telephone interrogation Friday with The News Service of Florida, Simpson called the Department of Corrections connection “a measurement guardant successful the close direction.”
“The astir important portion present is that radical that are moving are going to get contiguous raises,” Simpson said.
The nursing location connection would boost Medicaid outgo rates for 3 months, with the rates past reverting to mean levels.
The nursing location manufacture says further wealth is needed to assistance woody with idiosyncratic shortages and a dropoff successful the numbers of nursing location residents during the pandemic.
Occupancy was astir 78 percent successful mid-October, compared to 88 to 89 percent earlier the pandemic, according to manufacture numbers.
The Florida Health Care Association, the largest nursing-home radical successful the state, released a connection Friday that cited the “tremendous strain the pandemic has enactment connected Florida’s nursing centers.”
“The workforce shortages, combined with the accrued costs of continuing to run successful a COVID-19 environment, (have) plagued the semipermanent attraction assemblage for astir 2 years,” the connection said.
“The fiscal enactment offered by the Legislative Budget Commission amendment volition bring much-needed alleviation and assistance providers statesman addressing their staffing challenges truthful nary nonmigratory is near without the attraction they need.”
The Department of Corrections connection would usage astir $67.8 cardinal successful savings to supply wage increases and bonuses for correctional workers. The connection would summation basal wage by astatine slightest $5,000 per year, with employees astatine the lowest extremity of the wage standard receiving the biggest boosts.
“I deliberation it’s a bully starting point. It’s amended than the quality that we didn’t get nothing,” James Baiardi, who leads the authorities corrections section of the Florida Police Benevolent Association, told the News Service.
“I don’t deliberation it goes acold capable to lick the problem, but you person to beryllium appreciative of what they (the Legislature) gave you now.”
Under the plan, basal wage for correctional officers would commencement astatine $38,750, a astir 16 percent hike implicit the existent $33,500.
Base wage would spell from $36,850 to $42,100 for sergeants; from $40,535 to $45,535 for lieutenants; and from $44,589 to $49,589 for captains.
The Department of Corrections is besides asking for authorization to manus retired one-time bonuses of $3,000 for caller hires, $1,500 for correctional officers, and $3,000 for probation officers.
Raises wouldn’t beryllium arsenic hefty for seasoned correctional workers who gain much than basal wage rates.
They would get yearly wage boosts of $1,500, according to the plan.
“People who’ve been connected the occupation longer whitethorn not spot arsenic bully a rise arsenic immoderate of the newer people, and that’s wherefore we’re advocating for the adjacent rise to code the retention and compression and to look astatine raising the salaries of the seasoned staff,” Baiardi said.
With galore prisons built much than a half-century ago, discussions astir closing and consolidating prisons person brewed for years.
The New River installation projected for imperishable closure was 1 of 2 prisons, on with Baker Correctional Institution, temporarily shuttered successful August due to the fact that of staffing shortages.
The corrections section besides announced successful August it was keeping closed Cross City Correctional Institution, which had been evacuated earlier due to the fact that of flooding successful Dixie County.
Hundreds of dorms and dozens of enactment camps person besides been mothballed owed to the idiosyncratic crunch.
The caller connection besides involves doing distant with 1,290 full-time vacant positions, though the Joint Legislative Budget Commission doesn’t person the authorization to permanently destruct the jobs.
That’s thing lawmakers could bash during the yearly legislative league that begins connected Jan. 11.
Simpson has discussed “reinvesting” funds from eliminated positions toward wage increases.
“Our anticipation is this is conscionable a commencement with the raises and past we’ll bash further raises travel league time. Clearly, we judge that there’s ample country to unopen down different 1 (prison). But successful my opinion, it’s a situation erstwhile you’re paying corrections officers $16 an hour,” helium said.
(©2021 CBS Local Media. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten, oregon redistributed. The News Service of Florida’s Jim Saunders and Dara Kam contributed to this report.)
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