SHARE Click image to enlarge.

By of the

Madison — Six prison wardens locked in pay raises of 8% to 13% this week — bringing their pay to just under $100,000 a year — at a time when most correctional officers and other state employees are getting 1% pay raises.

The Department of Corrections was able to award the increases by moving wardens from one prison to another, because state rules allow larger wage increases for such job transfers. Some corrections officers derided the maneuver as a loophole, noting officers are often sent from one institution to another without seeing bumps in pay.

The raises included an 11% boost for Warden Michael Dittmann. An internal Department of Corrections investigation found evidence that Dittmann, about 10 years ago, used slurs against gays and threw refrigerated oranges at the groins of staff who disagreed with him.

That report also found Dittmann may have approved overtime for officers to cover the shifts of others so that they could attend cookouts at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution, where Dittmann was warden at the time, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2010. Dittmann was not disciplined.

The latest increases for wardens have angered officers already stung by a 2011 law that cut their compensation and greatly eroded the power of unions representing them and other public workers.

"This is naked cronyism," Paul Mertz, a correctional officer at Redgranite Correctional Institution, wrote in an email to the Journal Sentinel. "We have one standard for all the unwashed masses and another standard for the beautiful people."

A spokeswoman for Gov. Scott Walker declined to say whether the governor thought the raises were appropriate, saying it was a personnel matter for the agency. The pay raises were approved by Walker's corrections secretary, Ed Wall.

The department last year determined the target pay for wardens was about $100,000 after comparing their wages to that of other state workers classified as "career executives." State officials did not immediately release a copy of that wage study or say what jobs were used to compare the pay of wardens.

Under state rules, the department could not grant large increases to wardens if they stayed in their jobs. But by moving them from one institution to another, the agency was able to inflate their pay to the target salary.

Daniel Meehan, a sergeant at Waupun Correctional Institution, said the department's brass was helping its own while neglecting the vast majority of workers.

"It's almost like a dictatorship — they take care of the generals and to them everybody else is just a peasant," Meehan said.

In a recent memo to staff, Wall announced the plans to transfer wardens. The memo did not mention the salary increases.

"The DOC is blessed with many experienced and talented professionals in leadership positions and sharing their ideas across geographical and institutional boundaries helps to keep us resilient," Wall wrote in the memo.

Joy Staab, a spokeswoman for the department, issued a statement Tuesday that said the agency set new salary targets for wardens last year because their pay "has historically been significantly lower than similar career executive positions" at other state agencies.

A check by the Journal Sentinel found some wardens in neighboring states make more while others make less. In Illinois, the lowest paid warden makes $56,832 and the highest paid makes $125,820. In Minnesota, all wardens make about $117,000.

Iowa has a broad pay range of $64,979 to $130,978 for its wardens. A call to the Michigan Department of Corrections was not returned Tuesday.

In Wisconsin, officers find little solace in claims that wardens hadn't been making as much as their peers within state government. Officers have a starting wage of about $31,000 a year and argue the Department of Corrections has done little to review their wages and how they compare with officers in other states.

Officers and sergeants, like most state employees, saw a 1% wage increase for last year. Much of that was eaten up by increased payments they had to make for their health care and pensions. They are scheduled to receive another 1% pay bump in July.

The six wardens saw much bigger increases, bringing their pay to $99,996. They previously made between$88,192 and $92,624, records show.

The situation highlights the ability of state officials to use arcane maneuvers to grant certain workers bigger increases than they would otherwise be able to secure.

Using different bureaucratic moves last year, at least five state employees won pay raises when they were transferred into new jobs and then returned to their old ones, often in a matter of days. In the highest-profile case, Capitol Police Chief Dave Erwin was temporarily moved into a phantom job to increase his pay by 11.7%.

Some see the pay bumps for wardens as the latest sign of the weakness average state workers have in the face of Act 10, the 2011 law Walker and GOP lawmakers put in place that greatly limits the powers of unions for most public workers.

Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, said corrections officials need to release their wage study for wardens. He said he feared the agency had circumvented the normal process for determining appropriate salaries for state employees so they could give "backdoor pay increases."

"We don't know what benchmarks they used to give these incredible rich moves," Beil said.

Under Wall's plan, Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution Warden Gary Boughton and Wisconsin Secure Program Facility Warden Tim Haines traded jobs. The Secure Program Facility in Boscobel is the state's supermax prison.

Similarly, Dittmann, the warden at Redgranite Correctional Institution, and Columbia Correctional Institution Warden Michael Meisner switched their posts.

Wall made these changes for wardens at other facilities:

Brian Foster was moved from Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution to Green Bay Correctional Institution; Bob Humphreys was moved from Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility to Kettle Moraine; Pam Wallace was moved from Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility to Racine; and Jeff Pugh was moved from Stanley to Chippewa Valley.

Humphreys was already making $99,996 and so did not receive a pay increase.

Pugh, who received an 8% pay increase, is now responsible for about a third as many inmates as he had been before. The medium-security Stanley prison had 1,533 inmates as of Friday, while Chippewa Valley — a minimum-security facility that focuses on inmates with drug and alcohol addictions — had 489.

Also this week, Reed Richardson was promoted from deputy warden at Jackson Correctional Institution to warden of Stanley Correctional Institution. He received a pay increase of more than $20,000 — 26% — that took his pay from $79,347 to $99,996.

The shuffles were triggered with the retirement of Mike Baenen, who left as the Green Bay Correctional Institution warden on Friday.

In the past, when a warden retired, several other wardens applied for the position. When one of them was moved into the post, that created a new opening and a new round of applications. Officials say one opening could trigger a cascade of leadership changes over the course of months.

Wall wanted to avoid that and made several changes at once, said Staab, the department spokeswoman.

Of the wardens receiving the increases, Dittmann has captured the most headlines. In 2010, the Journal Sentinel reported on an internal investigation that included interviews with staff who said Dittmann had hit a captain in the scrotum with the back of his hand and on another occasion threw refrigerated oranges at the groins of male workers.

The person writing the report wrote that audio recordings of Dittmann revealed he spoke in an "offensive" and "inappropriate" manner, including when discussing gay staff and inmates.

The report cited three captains under Dittmann referring to wasting public funds by scheduling officers on overtime to cover the shifts of others so they could attend cookouts at the prison.

The investigation concluded the problems could be resolved with training and closer supervision. A department spokeswoman said then that Dittmann was not disciplined and did not receive additional training.

Dittmann released a statement to the newspaper at the time that said in part: "In 2004 and 2005 the professional relationships I maintained with some supervisors involved some office horseplay, but it was all in fun and there was never any intentionally abusive or demeaning behavior as alleged by Scot Galligan," who filed a whistle-blower complaint against Dittmann.

Galligan was reprimanded, suspended and transferred to another prison after secretly recording Dittmann.

Twitter: twitter.com/patrickdmarley