Union seeking $5,000 raise for state correctional, probation officers

A union representing Florida prisons’ correctional and probation officers is asking the state for a $5,000 raise and a cost-of-living adjustment for all its members.

The state and the Security Services Bargaining Unit of the Florida Police Benevolent Association have not agreed on wage levels, which start at $45,750 for probation officers and $47,000 for correctional officers.

However, Jim Baiardi, PBA’s representative, speaking to lawmakers in the Joint Committee on Collective Bargaining on behalf of the union Monday, said he was confident the group would get a raise.

He suggested more money could deter officers from seeking better-paying jobs elsewhere.

“Maybe a year like this where nobody knows what the pay raise is, so they read that the county is paying them more money, and they go there, and then sometimes even the state comes back and gives a pay raise later, but it’s too late because they’ve left already,” Baiardi told Florida Phoenix.

He wants lawmakers to approve a $5,000 raise in July and a cost of living adjustment in October to disperse the cost among the current fiscal year and the next.

The number of correctional officers has not kept up with the increase in the state’s prison population, which has grown by about 8,000 inmates since 2021. Last month, the Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon told Senators the overtime wage cost to the department is becoming a serious problem, saying he expects the demand for staff to grow by 461 positions in the next two years.

Dixon in February said he hoped the Legislature would address in its budget the $189 million deficit within the department.