Like Selling Soap, ‘Where There’s Dirt, There’s Dollars’

Many moons ago, when I was between jobs and money was really scarce, we decided to venture into selling Amway. It seemed to have all the right stuff to lead us from poverty to wealth, if we were willing to work at it. I should have known better. Even though we used the products, and they were certainly good, the aspect of selling, albeit to make needed dollars, was foreign to me. It dawned on me, selling may not be my strong suit.
All was not lost on this ill-fated merchandising venture. Among one of the required meetings we had to attend was blurted a pep-talk phrase that never left me. It became Amway’s legacy to me: “Where there’s dirt, there’s dollars.”
It may be grammatically incorrect, but the idea is golden.
Dirt of all kinds attracts dollars of all sorts. Dirty clothes need laundry soap. A pile of dinner dishes needs detergent to get them clean. Correctional centers, (a.k.a. jails), house miscreants of all varieties, and like dirt, those places make money for someone.
Consider that the county freeholders, on Jan. 12, introduced a $1.25-million bond ordinance to enlarge and renovate the county jail. In the scheme of things, that’s not a lot of money, and the additions are long overdue, my purpose is to bring to the reader’s attention just how much one small avenue of crime costs us taxpayers, and to show there is money in building correctional centers as well as manning them, another job, by the way, that I do not begrudge anyone who works “on the inside.”
Jail is somewhere I hope never to call home, but it is where many county residents reside, some on a more regular basis, and some longer than others. On a daily basis, the Cape May County Correctional Center is nearly always loaded past its original capacity, which was 149 when built in 1977. The center, through minor construction and renovation projects, is licensed to hold 181 inmates including 30 female inmates.
Its walls are not expandable, so living arrangements are tight, to say the least.
On Sept. 22, 2009, there were 278 housed in the center. On Jan. 13, 254 were incarcerated. The prior day, there were 247. On Dec. 16, there were 253. On Christmas Day there were 236 looking out, some wishing they were free, others probably happy to be inside and being fed.
Of course, those folks are not there for the public’s benefit, other than to keep them from harming others or, perhaps, themselves after a variety of crimes, or alleged crimes, have been committed.
To watch over those inmates are approximately 83 sworn officers and civilian personnel that work in the Correctional Division. Those personnel are comprised of a staff of senior officers, an administration section, an Inmate Services Department, an operations office, a Medical Department, Food Service Department, Maintenance Department, and three shifts of Correctional Officers.
Supervising the entire operation is Sheriff Gary Schaffer, one of three Constitutional Officers, who earns $107,499. That’s the same salary as County Clerk Rita Fulginiti and Surrogate W. Robert Hentges.
Thus, more tax dollars are involved in watching over the accused or convicted, namely manpower. Without being specific to a person, salaries for correctional and sheriff’s personnel, all under labor contracts, earn from about $34,000 upward to around $100,000. Do they earn it? Yes. But how long can we afford it?
As Gov. Jon Corzine said in his “State of the State Address” on Jan. 12, “Let’s call it like it is: everyone’s property taxes are too damn high. Let’s also be brutally honest: until we reform our state’s antiquated structure for providing local government services, a home-rule system dating back to the 17th century, we’re never going to get the job done. That said, together we have cut the rate of property tax growth in half.”
As I perused the salaries of, not only the Sheriff’s Department, but also those in the Prosecutor’s Office, which deals with the other side of crime, I had to wonder if something isn’t broken in our system that needs adjustment.
At the same time the freeholders introduced the $1.25-million bond ordinance for the county jail, they also approved a contract with Cumberland County for four beds in that county’s juvenile detention center for $200 a night, as needed. If more bad kids than that need to be put to bed up there, the price creeps up to $254 a night per bed.
Just like picking up roadside litter is money in somebody’s wallet, these sums are being taken from us. Someone is making dollars from dirt, although in an indirect way.
To add a bit more fuel to the fire, let’s look at the education side of the ledger.
How many school teachers earn what, say, corrections officers make?
Yes, many school administrators make six figures, yet the public seems to spit each time they see their salaries or those of teachers, who make maybe $65,000, yet few question the money spent on those who work with inmates.
How much do we spend to house youths who commit crimes? Understand the $200 a night bed is just the start of the meter, when the entire juvenile justice system salaries start to kick in. How does that compare with what is spent to help our young people succeed?
There’s certainly little money left over for youth activities like 4-H or Scouting or recreational teams, but money seems to flow for delinquents and their older counterparts.
That’s certainly not strange. After all, “Where there’s dirt, there’s dollars.”