Employees at Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center will have their retention pay cut in half

Employees at Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center will see their retention pay — a financial incentive to maintain employment at the agency — cut by 50% starting March 23.

The union that represents the Philadelphia detention center employees, the American Federation of Government Employees’ Council of Prison Locals 33, learned of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ decision to reduce retention pay Tuesday, weeks after the bureau along with other federal agencies signed an agreement designating FDC Philadelphia as one of two correctional institutions in the Northeast to house ICE detainees.

Since July 2023, staff at FDC Philadelphia received 10% of their current base pay as retention — as part of their biweekly paychecks — but in just a few weeks that will be slashed to 5%, likely exacerbating existent issues with short-staffing and recruitment, said Frank Bailey, Northeast regional vice president of AFGE Council of Prison Locals 33, in an interview Tuesday evening.

“We’re being tasked with all of these extra duties now,” Bailey said. “They’ve asked us to go to the border and bus detainees, they’ve asked us to now house detainees in bulk, so they’re giving us more stuff to do, and now they’re cutting our pay further.”

It remains unclear to the Council of Prison Locals whether the cut is related to President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been engaging in a massive overhaul of the federal workforce and spending. Federal prisons, though, have been largely unscathed by the government hiring freeze or layoffs.

When asked whether the reduction is related to DOGE, Randilee Giamusso, a spokesperson for the bureau of prisons, said in a statement: “This action is being taken as part of an effort to address a significant budget shortfall.”

At other institutions across the agency, retention pay has been eliminated entirely because of budget constraints, noting that some employees nationwide receive incentives as high as 35% of their salary, Giamusso said.

“This decision was not made lightly, and we recognize the financial hardship this may cause for employees who rely on those incentives. However, the current financial challenges necessitate this action to ensure the long-term stability of the agency and to maintain operations across the board,” Giamusso said.

The agency “will continue to monitor the budget situation and adjust its financial strategy as needed,” Giamusso added.

But, Bailey said, the collateral damage will manifest in the difficulty to recruit hires for an already stretched-thin workforce.

FDC Philadelphia is short-staffed by about 25 officers, according to the latest available guidelines from 2016. A large banner is hanging from the detention center, located at Seventh and Arch Streets, advertising job openings for correctional officers, nurses and nurse practitioners, and paramedics.

“They reduce the [retention] pay by 50%, it’s probably going to make it 75% harder,” Bailey said. “So it’s that, and also these people that only have five or six years in that aren’t fully vested into this career, it makes it easier for them to look at other places now.”

Retention pay was established after employees signaled in exit surveys they were leaving the agency because of low compensation, Bailey said.

“They could go get a job at a warehouse or at Walmart distribution center or Sheetz distribution and make more money and not have to work as many hours and not have the danger of working in a prison, and so … the bureau implemented these retention and incentive bonuses to entice people to stay or to entice people to come,” Bailey said.

There are no “statutory rights” to this money, and it’s not included in the union’s bargaining agreement, meaning the bureau of prisons has the power to take it away whenever they see fit, he added.

In the past, retention pay has been removed sporadically for institutions agencywide, but this decision marks the first time all correctional centers have been impacted in some way, Bailey said.

The union said the next step is to lobby Congress to provide additional funding to the bureau of prisons. Bailey was to be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to observe the Commerce Justice and Science subcommittee’s budget oversight hearing , with plans to approach lawmakers about the cut to retention pay.

“This isn’t political,” Bailey said. “This has nothing to do with who you voted for or who you supported. This is about keeping our community safe, keeping inmates safe, keeping the staff safe.”