Remaining CCA workers get termination notices

The mayor remains open to options to keep the prison operating without compromising public safety.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Remaining employees at Northeast Ohio Correctional Center received 60-day termination notices today.
Steve Owen, CCA spokesman, said the remaining 249 workers were given notices that they will be unemployed as early as June 23.
"If, after that date, we still had offenders there, then in full compliance with the Youngstown agreement we would maintain the staff there that is needed," Owen said.
Once the inmates are gone, there will be a small staff of employees along with Warden Brian Gardner "as we continue to pursue alternative contracts," Owens said.
Mayor George M. McKelvey said Tuesday he is willing to consider having higher-risk inmates if it means keeping the facility here.
"We're open minded to discussing those issues, but we won't compromise public safety," he said Tuesday.
The mayor said different entities have different interpretations of what a medium-security prisoner is. The private prison houses what McKelvey considers midlevel medium-security prisoners. He would be open to discussions allowing high-level medium-security prisoners there.
"There are rapists and murderers who are medium-security prisoners," he said.
Needs new contract: Corrections Corporation of America gave notice Friday that it may close NOCC in August if it does not get a new contract for inmates. There are about 350 prisoners in the 2,106-bed prison.
"CCA is most concerned about staff-inmate ratio and the inmate classification," McKelvey said. "They are talking about high medium-security, which is one step above where they are now and one step below maximum-security prisoners."
McKelvey does not want minimum-security and maximum-security prisoners in the same facility.
NOCC was plagued by stabbings and homicides among prisoners after it opened in 1997, which McKelvey said was caused by mixing the prison population.
"The high-security inmates preyed on the low-security inmates and killed a few of them," he said. "They need to create a homogenous population."
The prison has an annual payroll of about $11 million and paid the city $250,000 in income tax last year.
It announced last month that it was reducing its staff of 449 workers by 45 percent, or 200 workers, cutting its share of the city's income tax collection almost in half.
The prison is a vital business to the city and one that can be saved, McKelvey said.