While investigating a report that an employee at a state juvenile detention center was sleeping over at the facility for free, Virginia officials discovered a much bigger problem: 22 other staff members were doing the same thing at detention centers around the state. The investigation was prompted by a complaint that Vincent Wilkerson, an employee at the state’s Reception and Diagnostic Center located outside of Richmond, was living in one of the buildings on the campus, for free and without permission. It was while checking on Wilkerson that state investigators learned that 22 other employees had adopted similar living arrangements at the Beaumont and Culpeper correctional centers, as well as the Richmond area facility. They stayed for a total of 652 days starting around September 2009.
The staffers who were sleeping over had $10 added to their checks for each night they stayed over. Their penalty is that they have to pay taxes on the additional income.
Wilkerson said he had permission to stay at the center. He had been transferred to the Richmond center after the state’s Natural Bridge facility, located about two and a half hours west, was closed in 2009 by budget constraints, he said. Wilkerson said state officials told him the state would provide temporary housing for employees being relocated.
But he, too, had $620 counted toward his income, based on the 62 days he stayed there.
Two other former Natural Bridge employees were in similar situations, he said.
“I had no inkling that I was doing anything wrong or doing anything against state policy,” he said, adding that he believes he was turned in by someone with a grudge against him.
His contention appears founded, according to a statement from Robin Farmer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Juvenile Justice.
“We believe the previous administration made accommodations to a number of employees to provide housing where they worked in order to fulfill the staffing needs of these facilities,” she said.
The investigation showed, though, that the practice was not in line with state policy.
As a result, the centers now only provide staff with temporary housing in cases of a facility emergency or inclement weather.
Virginia operates a handful of juvenile correctional centers, most of them in the southeastern part of the state.
