The Nebraska Department of Corrections is telling employees it will soon issue a policy that will outline how they can communicate with state senators and their staffs, in meetings or public hearings.
Some Corrections staff have already been contacted by lawmakers since the Legislature's session started last week, an email from Corrections Chief of Staff Laura Strimple said. Lawmakers may want information from employees related to legislative initiatives, or they may be asking them to testify at hearings that begin next week.
The department's policy is still being developed, but Strimple said that going forward, any requests from senators or their staff should be authorized by Corrections Department administration before employees respond to lawmakers.
"In addition, permission must be provided by Director (Scott) Frakes before any staff member testifies on behalf of NDCS," the email said.
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They were asked to direct any inquiries to Strimple so they could be reviewed by Frakes.
Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart, whose District 27 is where many correctional officers of varying ranks live and includes the Nebraska State Penitentiary, said it's concerning that Corrections employees would be discouraged by administration from speaking to their state senators.
She said she will continue to connect with correctional staff and all state government employees. Their thoughts and opinions would be held in the highest regard, she said, and in confidence.
"I believe it is the right of all Nebraskans to speak freely as constituents to their senators," she said.
"We rely on the experiences and advice of people who are the boots on the ground in these facilities when making decisions on how we fix a broken Corrections system."
Often, she said, the best ideas for solving tough problems don't come from politicians or administrators, but from the people who work day-in and day-out closest to the problem.
"We should be encouraging communication, not discouraging it," she said.
The prisons have been in crisis for a while from overcrowding and understaffing. There was a riot in 2015 at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution that left two inmates dead, another deadly disturbance there in 2017, officer assaults, contraband seizures, a killing of an inmate by his cellmate and petitions from inmates complaining about lockdowns and restrictions on their abilities to meet as self-betterment clubs and use the prisons' law libraries.
"To muzzle the employees so that information getting to the Legislature is tightly controlled is not helpful in solving the crisis over at the Department of Corrections," said Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Strimple said Friday employees of the Department of Corrections should not be speaking to senators about agency policy, since Frakes sets the policy for the department.
If staff members intend to speak to senators as representatives of the agency, they need to obtain his approval first, she said.
"Otherwise, there is the potential that senators could receive inaccurate, misinterpreted, misleading or contradictory information from multiple sources," she said. "That does not lead to a good legislative process."
Employees are entitled to personal opinions, she said, but they must delineate when they are speaking for the agency and when they are speaking for themselves. A staff member can speak on their own behalf about personal issues, as a representative of an outside organization or as a union member.
"But they should make that clear to the senator," she said.
And do it on their own time, not while they are supposed to be working.
But ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad sees the mandate to employees as another development in the crisis-riddled prison system, as federal courts and the Legislature scrutinize conditions that are not getting better.
First, the labor agreement had a gag order on the employees' union to oppose any bill related to pay or employee classification of security staff proposed by the Legislature, she said.
"And now they are silencing critical front-line whistleblowers," Conrad said. "What are they trying to hide?"
In December, the corrections officers union and state administration agreed to a new pay plan with progression steps and pay increases.
Fraternal Order of Police Corrections union President Mike Chipman said at the time the deal would put the Department of Corrections on the right path to address the prisons' staffing crisis and encourage people to make Corrections a long-term career choice.