These are the most frequently asked questions of the Corrections Foundation about our Employee Assistance Program, membership, and donations.
Absolutely not! Each program has its own designated funding source. Membership dues solely benefit the Employee Assistance Program and your fellow officers and employees.
By comparison, funds donated to prison programs are used only for that purpose.
In both cases, funds are never used for any other purpose except for what they're donated for.
Anyone can join the Corrections Foundation. Membership is open to anyone who wishes to join. However, financial assistance through the Employee Assistance Program is limited to FDC employees and contractors performing services for FDC in FDC institutions, e.g., health services in prisons, IT professionals in Central Office, etc. OPS employees are eligible to join and benefit from membership, too.
Certainly! You can join the Foundation and we welcome your membership. Contract employees performing services for FDC (e.g., health services, IT, etc) can benefit from the Employee Assistance Program just as a regular FDC employee. You can join online at https://www.correctionsfoundation.org/join/fdc-contractors//.
Please make sure you review the criteria and procedure to receive assistance to make sure you are eligible.
Each request is evaluated by Foundation staff. Foundation staff and the Foundation's Executive Board has final authority to approve or deny any request.
We utilize only 15% of each donated dollar to cover salaries and office supplies.
Funds from FDC payroll deduction are put into a separate account and utilized only for the Employee Assistance Program. All expenditures are documented and receipts and authorizations are required.
The Corrections Foundation has a finance committee and an executive committee that reviews and oversees financial procedures of the Foundation.
In addition, the two senior officers in the Corrections Foundation - the President and Vice President - are not FDC employees.
Each year an audit is performed by a Tallahassee-based accounting firm. The audit is performed with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America and the standards applicable to financial audits contained in Government Auditing Standards, issued by the Comptroller General of the United States.
The result of those audits and other documents are available at https://correctionsfoundation.org/about/forms-and-publications.
No. The minimum donation to be considered a member is $2, effective March 16, 2018 and was previously $1, effective 2004. Anyone who pays less than $2 as of March 16, 2018 is not considered a member and does not qualify for full financial assistance.
There is no "grandfathering" or otherwise any exception to this.
Daily emergencies happen to everyone at some point. It’s recommended that everyone have a $1,000 accessible in an emergency fund to deal with small-scale emergencies. The Corrections Foundation shouldn’t be used to cover routine expenses that occur for everyone at any given point.
We can, of course, look at this on a case-by-case basis and can make exceptions for individual cases as needed.
This is to ensure we do not provide more in assistance than an employee actually encumbers. There have been situations where inaccurate information has been provided where expenses that were claimed to have been incurred were not actually incurred because they were covered by insurance, resulting in, for example, a $20,000 bill actually only being $500 because insurance covered $19,500.
No. Robberies are usually covered by homeowners or renters insurance. You can seek out renters or homeowners insurance through Star and Shield, which specializes in providing insurance to corrections and law enforcement officers and professionals.
No. Financial assistance for attorneys fall outside criteria for assistance. We recommend using US Legal Services as a method of legal insurance to help cover costs of attorneys.
The staff and board of the Corrections Foundation are dedicated to transparency and accountability, which go hand-in-hand. Transparency is indeed a necessary condition for accountability. The Corrections Foundation adheres to the Donor Bill of Rights, available at https://correctionsfoundation.org/about/donor-bill-of-rights/.
Each month we’ll provide on our website, through our social networking, and e-mail distribution our EAP donations and our monthly aggregate pay-outs.
Under no circumstances will individual data will be released or any data that could lead individuals to guess at who has requested or received assistance. This data is protected.
No. Membership must be in effect for 30 days before you can request assistance. In addition, membership must be in effect at the time of triggering event. For example, if your house burns down - which would qualify for assistance - if you're not a member, you can not join and get assistance at the member level. We encourage everyone to join to not only help other employees in need, but to also be able to fully assist you if something should happen.
Yes, we do this quite easily. Just as funds donated to our Employee Assistance Program are used only for that purpose, when we receive donations specifically for an inmate program, those funds are earmarked only for that purpose. An example is funds donated for the dog programs at institutions, gavel clubs, musical equipment, or wellness equipment.
