TAMMS – The supermax prison that Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is looking to close for budgetary reasons is paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime to its security staff despite having more guards than inmates, according to a newspaper report.

The Tamms Correctional Center in Alexander County has 208 guards and supervisors in its maximum-security unit that houses 138 inmates.

Yet state payroll records show that security staff has clocked at least $884,000 in overtime over a one-year period ending Nov. 12, the Belleville News-Democrat reported. Inmates in the solitary-confinement unit are kept in their cells for all but an hour each day,