Buck Stoppage: A Department Chief Makes an Example--Of Himself

When critical mistakes are made in government agencies, the response is often predictable: Someone down the chain of command takes the fall, and the department moves on. In Oklahoma's Department of Corrections, however, there will no longer be any question where the responsibility buck stops: It's at the director's desk.

In late March, Director James Saffle took the unusual action of suspending himself and a top aide. Their critical error was providing inaccurate inmate transfer information to legislators and others. Saffle disciplined himself for five days without pay. He had cited incorrect numbers of state inmates who were reclassified and eligible for lower security levels--a controversial issue in an ongoing debate over corrections funding. The department's associate director got off with a lighter sentence. She was only docked for three days without pay.

According to Saffle's own investigation into how the inmate classification figures got botched, the department lacked a proper accountability system that would have uncovered certain flaws at all levels of review. "What happens or fails to happen in this agency rests with the agency head, since I am ultimately responsible," he wrote in a four-page report to the state Corrections Board.

For Saffle, the self-imposed suspension hardly qualified as a holiday. The disciplinary action cost him roughly $1,500. Worse, he didn't even have time for a breather: Saffle spent his time away from the office preparing for hearings in a long-running case over prison conditions.