According to State Senator Dave Luechtefeld says, using the Illinois Department of Correction’s own numbers, the number of inmate-on-staff assaults at the state’s correctional centers is up more than 20 percent and sits as the highest rate of assaults in 10 years.  “530 officers and other frontline staff were assaulted during Fiscal Year 2013, that number is a sharp increase from the previous 428.  By looking at the Department’s figures we also see that this is the highest number of hits since FY 2004,” Luechtefeld said.  “Our primary concern is for the staff at these institutions and we will remain steadfast in our support of their safety and ensuring that our correctional centers do not revert back to a more turbulent and violent time.”  Luechtefeld and other Senate Republicans have been actively looking into management issues within the IDOC and even held a meeting with the agency’s Director S.A. Godinez and several former administrators who have since retired or moved onto other endeavors.  The two sides did come to agreement on some staffing issues which included moving officers out of non-security positions and filling a backlog of clerical vacancies.  With the closures of Tamms and Dwight Correctional Centers, there were still 48,933 inmates on May 31, in a correctional system designed for roughly between 31,000 and 32,000 inmates.  Issues of understaffing of key security positions still exist as a result of increased retirements and an ever increasing shortage of key leaders at the sergeant and lieutenant positions at some southern Illinois facilities like Lawrence Correctional Center.