The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plans to terminate 841 employees in its parole division by September 2013, according to a new document issued Wednesday and obtained by The State Worker.
"Reductions reflect actual 'bodies' to be eliminated once unallocated positions, vacancies, limited term, out of class and retired annuitants have been deducted," footnotes in the document says.
The slashes to CDCR's Division of Adult Parole Operations aren't a surprise. Part of the budget that legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown passed earlier this year included shifting the state's parole functions to local government agencies. As that plan progresses, it means that state parole staff will be let go.
According to the tables emailed to staff this week by DAPO, 37 parole employees will be let go by March 2012, all but one of them in the program technician classification. By the following September, another 162 employees -- half of them parole agents -- will be gone.
DAPO anticipates that by September 2013 the division will have released a total of five parole administrators, 533 parole agents, 298 program techs, one supervising psychiatric social worker and four clinical social workers.
A little over one-third of the cuts, 316 jobs, will hit Los Angeles County, which has the highest concentration of parolees in the state. Sacramento County will lose 28 employees, about 3 percent of the total.
DAPO Deputy Director Margarita Perez attached the staff reduction tables to a Wednesday e-mail to parole staff announcing a statewide conference call today to talk over the division's downsizing.
Corrections spokesman Paul Verke confirmed that these DAPO job reduction tables are accurate and are part of the department's ongoing effort to keep employees and the public informed. Despite the anticipated cutbacks, Verke said, "The department remains committed to maintaining public safety through monitoring of both parolees and incarcerated inmates."
Corrections is the state's largest department, employing approximately 63,000 employees.
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