DOC chief: 'Culture' change ahead
He's battling cozy contracting
Originally published March 10, 2006
The head of Florida's beleaguered prison system told legislators Thursday he is combating nepotism, cronyism and cozy contracting in a two-fisted "culture" that makes many employees want to be tougher than the criminals they guard.
Jim McDonough, interim secretary of the Department of Corrections, got a warm welcome from the Senate justice budget committee - including two Big Bend lawmakers whose districts include the state's biggest prisons and thousands of employees. McDonough confirmed that purchasing of construction and services is an important part of a long, wide-ranging investigation that last month caused Gov. Jeb Bush to ask for then-Secretary Jim Crosby's resignation.
In four weeks, McDonough has fired one warden and five high-level DOC employees, demoted and transferred three others, suspended and transferred another, imposed a new dress code in offices and frozen more than 50 bank accounts that groups of employees used for recreational and morale-building functions. Some high-level officers have also resigned during a long-running investigation that, dating back to early parts of Crosby's three-year tenure, involved allegations of steroid distribution among guards, misuse of inmate labor, theft of prison property and favoritism in hiring and promotion.
McDonough said he has Bush's full support in changing "culture" and "systems" long embedded in the department.
"It's an attempt to take the professional culture that is in the department and to accentuate that and bring it out, and make sure it's the dominant culture - as opposed to what could be portrayed as the prisoner culture," said McDonough. "So on the one hand you have a professionalism and on the other you have a culture steeped in violence and brute strength and force."
McDonough, a West Point graduate and retired Army colonel who was Bush's top drug-policy adviser for seven years, emphasized that "the vast majority" of his 26,000 employees are hard-working, honest and competent. But the 27-year military officer said an atmosphere of violence can take root in any organization that does dangerous work, with rank-and-file employees becoming reluctant to speak out against it.
"If you start to exist in a system in places where the other side is advanced - that is to say, where the definition of the proper culture is to be bigger, better, badder, meaner than the prisoners - then that's where the reward seems to be," McDonough told reporters after his committee appearance.
He estimated that $1.5 million is in the frozen "morale funds" of various employee social clubs in the far-flung system. McDonough estimated that "more than 100" cases are known, with some level of irregularities or favoritism existing in everything from promotion to use of some of the 10,000 houses, apartments and mobile-home locations the department maintains.
He also said he is following up on complaints of sexual harassment by some DOC employees, as well as monitoring inmate lawsuits alleging excessive force or over-use of chemical sprays.
McDonough he said rooting out nepotism is complicated because service in the beige ranks of prison officers is a proud family tradition in many parts of the state. McDonough told senators he was not sure "how far back do you go" when someone got hired because of connections but has done a good job for years.
"There are state rules, and there are department protocols. It appears to me that the protocols in the department have been disregarded in recent years," said McDonough. "Nepotism has occurred. I have seen it as I've gone through the records."
As for cronyism in assignments, he said, "We have to have standards for promotion. Promotion must be based on merit."
Sens. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, and Rod Smith, D-Gainesville, praised McDonough for taking on the culture of the agency. Smith, a candidate for governor whose district includes Union and Bradford counties, said prison employees have told him many "rumors" about state contracting infractions.
"You correctly identified the things that I cannot talk to you about," McDonough replied. "There is some problem with some contracts; however, let me reassure you that there are not problems with all contracts."
Argenziano and Smith said months of investigations, firings and arrests have hurt morale among employees.
"They are mostly career people doing a thankless job that not everybody understands how tough it is ... and they are really down right now," Smith said. "They are as down as I've seen them in terms of just worrying about their futures and the future of what they do and the respect for what they do."
McDonough told the committee, "I don't wish to portray us as in crisis, but there are difficulties in the department that the governor had identified and asked me to address."
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Contact Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545 or bcotterell@tallahassee.com.
Interim Director James McDonough
