An exasperated Gov. Brian Sandoval declared Nevada had a “fiscal emergency” on its hands after hearing that the Nevada Department of Corrections is $15 million over budget this year because of soaring correctional officer overtime costs.

Sandoval said the audit discussed Tuesday at the Executive Branch Audit Committee, which includes all other Nevada constitutional officers, was the worst he’d seen in his seven years as governor. Concerned that the agency would “survive” the criticism at the meeting but return to the status quo, he asked whether it was possible for an auditor to embed in the prisons agency and ensure fixes come to pass.

“This is the zero moment when the ship sinks or stays up,” Sandoval said, pointing out that the spiraling costs could wipe out a reserve fund, depriving other agencies of emergency funds or forcing him to call a special session to fix a budget hole. “Thinking, looking, reviewing — we’re beyond that. … We need action right away.”

In each of the past three years, overtime costs for the prisons department have grown 30 percent, auditors said. The prison population itself has grown by an average of just 2 percent in that time period.

Some of that can be explained by the need for supervision while an increasing number of inmates receive medical care outside the prison — hospital supervision drove 18 percent of overtime expenses last year.

But auditors pointed out some egregious cases, such as an officer at Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs who made $97,000 in overtime in fiscal year 2017, far more than the average at the facility of $7,000. Are officers calling in sick so their colleagues can pick up their shift on overtime pay, and is the friend returning the favor?

“It would be naive to think the system is not being gamed. I am positive that there is collusion going on in order to generate schedules that would result in ‘feathering one’s nest,’ as you say,” said John Borrowman, NDOC’s deputy director of support services. “But at what point in time do we implement a policy that is harmful to the collective in order to address those who are gaming the system? How do you isolate those? How do you identify those?”

Nevada prisons, which house some 14,000 inmates, constitute one of the state general fund’s biggest expenses. Of an $8 billion, two-year general fund budget, about $685 million is dedicated to the Department of Corrections.

Lawmakers are not strangers to fielding overtime funding requests from the agency, which has struggled with a chronically high vacancy rate and has warned of escalating prison medical costs. As a way to improve recruitment and retention, Gov. Brian Sandoval proposed — and lawmakers approved — a 5 percent pay raise for correctional officers.

Vacancy rates have stabilized — four of the seven major facilities have rates of 4 percent or less, which is considered healthy and normal, although Ely, Lovelock and Northern Nevada Correctional Center have rates ranging from 9 percent to 14 percent.

But the agency said the Legislature declined to approve additional medical transport positions to take inmates to doctor’s appointments and supervise them during hospital stays. Asked why, Borrowman told Sandoval that lawmakers said they didn’t want to create positions that would remain vacant. State lawmakers cut about $5.8 million out of the originally proposed budget during the 2017 legislative session.

Prison officials blame that lack of dedicated medical transport officers for forcing officers to leave their regular duties and then inducing overtime.

In one case, they said 12 women housed at Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center were in the hospital at once to give birth. While the prison had budgeted for four officers to supervise inmates receiving medical care, they needed 72 officers a day in that case — two per inmate, and three shifts per day.

Asked about the two-person policy, Borrowman said the department is considering whether it can monitor hospitalized inmates with just one officer.

Sandoval was critical of agency officials who offered explanations for their current policy of allowing overtime and leave time in close proximity. The policy was nice, but “we’re not an ATM,” the governor said.

“The response I hear now is that we want a blank check. We don’t have a blank check,” he said.



Borrowman countered that he was intent on fixing the problem.

“I’m sorry if I haven’t expressed the urgency the department is taking as we do this review,” he said. “We do understand that it is our responsibility to live within our means, and we are making every effort to do so.”

Auditors offered four recommendations: