TOPEKA- Gov. Laura Kelly has declared an end to an emergency at the state’s most-crowded prison that had 12 hour shifts for officers.
The Department of Corrections said Monday that it expects the El Dorado Correctional Facility to return to a regular schedule of five, eight-hour days a week for officers starting in early October.
The emergency was declared in February by Kelly to allow the prison about 30 miles east of Wichita to schedule officers for four, 12-hour shifts a week. The prison houses more than 1,950 inmates.
The department said the number of vacancies among uniformed officers dropped to 50 in late July from 75 in mid-June. It attributed the decline to increased funding for higher wages that boosted starting pay to $18.26 an hour from $15.75.
