DRC announces central office consolidation, job cuts

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction announced that it will consolidate offices in Central Ohio into one facility located just west of downtown Columbus.

The move to the new Franklinton location is projected to save "700,000 next fiscal year and about $3.2 million in the next decade," according to a June 5, 2008, Hannah News.

Collins said about 150 employees in exempted positions – non-union managers and supervisors – were told this week their positions would be eliminated by June 21. Other exempted staffers were bumped to different positions or facilities. With about 30 unclassified positions eliminated earlier this year, the department is a third of the way toward the target of cutting roughly 540 positions. (Collins outlined planned cuts of a total of 701 jobs in April, but about 160 of those were already vacant).

Parole officers, guards, teachers and nurses are exempt from the cuts because the department didn’t want to affect safety, DRC has said.

DRC officials this week notified OCSEA-represented employees who face cuts in central office, while layoffs for SEIU- and OEA-represented employees follow and finish by late July.

As the department also looks at other ways to spend less, it is grappling with the fact that the inmate population has been increasing steadily and is likely to keep doing so. State prisons house just under 50,200 inmates now, and back in April the department projected that number could jump to 55,000 within two years. Collins wants more beds in community corrections programs to offset population growth and the associated cost of processing inmates.