State corrections commissioner Joe Schmidt did the wrong thing in dismissing his officers' concerns. His negative comments about his officers are a great disservice to the men and women who work hard around the clock, protecting the public from dangerous offenders.

These fiercely independent employees aren't concerned about a cushy labor agreement; they're talking about basic safety and resent being smeared. That's why they voted overwhelmingly against him in the no-confidence vote, the first of its kind in state history.

The commissioner said the union is upset because he had engaged in a campaign of ''reform'' in response to widespread ethical lapses and corruption by correctional officers, including 40-plus personnel investigations, some resulting in termination. This is inaccurate and paints all of the employees with a broad brush.

The department averages 40-50 investigations a year, most of which involve calling an employee in to determine what happened in a situation and result in no action being taken. In a department with 730 correctional officers at 12 locations, this averages out to three or four instances at each location per year. Most employers would be thankful for this low number.

The difference is that this commissioner has attempted to pursue terminations of more employees than I did in four years and he has done the terminations so ineptly that most of the employees in question were reinstated with back pay after expensive arbitration proceedings. In one hearing about an officer who was terminated, the arbitrator found that the testimony of the commissioner's high-level official was ''less than credible,'' i.e., he lied.

The commissioner dismissed concerns about prison overcrowding. Last year he changed how the department calculates overcrowding, moving out of compliance with all national prison standards. Calculating prison capacity by including "special beds" (space used to house inmates for disciplinary reasons) and then filling all of them makes it harder to manage an often violent prisoner population. In NOT adding those beds to the total it appears as though the prisons are less crowded than they actually are.

Packing prisons beyond accepted standards requires more officers to supervise prisoners and have adequate backup during emergencies. Although the commissioner claims to have hired more correctional officers, the numbers fall short because of the large increase in numbers of prisoners. This raises risks to both correctional officers and the prisoners in the facilities. The key to reducing risk is adequate supervision. The liability to the state, as a result, is incalculable.

Overcrowding also places the department at risk of violating the terms of the Cleary prisoner rights lawsuit settlement, which means the state could go back under expensive court oversight. The last time court oversight was in place the department's budget doubled. The commissioner has slowed and downsized the new prison project so that, if it is ever built, the system will be at least 1,000 beds short the day it opens.

The commissioner also dismissed concerns about the spread of MRSA, a drug-resistant form of staph, in the state's prisons. A large number of prisoners have been infected with MRSA and it is spreading to the officers.

The commissioner responded to the problem by saying that there is no problem. His health care staff said they don't track MRSA, but then said it wasn't a problem. If they don't track it, how do they know it isn't a problem?

I had many disagreements with the union during my tenure, but never about basic safety conditions of the employees and prisoners. If I had received a vote of no-confidence from the correctional officers with whom I served, I would have done the right thing and resigned. This commissioner needs to do the right thing now.