Anchorage Daily News

State corrections officers this afternoon publicly censured their boss, Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt, with a vote of "no confidence" announced by their union. Officials said the vote, which passed 514-19, was the first of its kind as far as they knew.

When Schmidt was named commissioner by Gov. Sarah Palin in November 2006, he was supported by the union and considered a popular choice for the top job. At the time, he was superintendent of Point MacKenzie Correctional Farm.

Since then, his support by corrections officers has eroded under allegations that he has covered up medical issues in the jails and cut staff to dangerous levels in the prisons.

Randy McLellan, an officer at Mat-Su pretrial jail, call the situation "a powder keg with a fuse in it."

Sgt. Gary Damron at Hiland Mountain prison said the commissioner and the department refuse to recognize health threats at the facilities. Hundreds of inmates suffer from an infection called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), he said, and two have died from it.

Nearly a dozen corrections officers have also been infected, Damron said, but the department refuses to pay the necessary cost of combating the infection.

Schmidt has said he believes in transparency and has been open to media inquiries during his tenure.

Schmidt said this afternoon that when he took the job he began a new era focused on rehabilitating prisoners and reducing recidivism. In his first year, he said, he ordered 49 internal investigations into correctional officers, with disciplinary action in half the cases and four terminations. He said this has strained his relationship with the union.

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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