By KWMU/AP
St. Louis, MO – Missouri probation and parole officers say they want back pay that the courts have said the state owes them.
The workers rallied today in St. Louis and Kansas City, saying the Department of Corrections has ignored the court orders.
Daniel Spring, a probation and parole officer in St. Louis, says the workers were excluded from a statewide cost-of-living increase in 2003. A judge ruled that the officers should not have been excluded and an appeals court upheld that ruling last year.
"The money became available on July 1st for release from the department of corrections and thus far we haven't anything from anybody. We're trained probation and parole officers and we're trained to hold people accountable and we want some answers right now," Spring said.
The workers say they are owed $4.4 million, or an average of $3,600 per officer. Calls to the Department of Corrections seeking comment have not been returned.