TDCJ turnover rate among guards lower than reported

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Employment data Grits published over the weekend from TDCJ misinterpreted and overstated job turnover trends among prison guards, TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark emailed to say, though he graciously added that  it was "our fault for not putting an appropriate caveat on the turnover report." See his explanation below the jump:

The agency turnover report uses the SAO's methodology for calculating turnover by job title:  the number of separations during the year divided by the average number of filled positions during the year. The methodology works fine for most job titles, but produces a misleading
result for positions in which individuals only serve for a few months.

For example, the FY 2011 report shows a turnover rate of 59.36 percent for the CO I position (405 separations/682.3 average filled positions).  That implies six out of ten newly hired correctional officers do not advance to the CO II position.

But it doesn't account for the fact that a person is only a CO I for two months.  More than 4,000 men and women held the CO I position during FY 2011.  Of the 4,000, 405 separated employment. So in reality one out of ten newly hired correctional officers fails to advance to the CO II position.

The turnover rate for CO II (56.54 percent) is also misleading, although less overstated.  Because someone is a CO II for six months,  there was somewhat less than 4,000 men and women in the CO II position during FY 2011, of which 1,062 separated.

In fact, about one third of newly hired correctional officers fail to advance to CO III.  About 40 percent of newly hired correctional officers leave in the first year.  The blog is right in that the highest CO turnover rate occurs in the first year of employment, but 80 percent is not correct.

Grits apologizes for the misinterpretation and has corrected the erroneous post. See more related to understaffing issues at TDCJ from The Back Gate.