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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
SACRAMENTO - As California struggles with a massive deficit, the state's beleaguered prison system can't continue the chronic overspending that has skewed its budget out of any connection with fiscal reality, state senators said yesterday.
The Department of Corrections overspent by $545 million last year. An Associated Press analysis found the department overspent by $1.6 billion since 1999, much of it going for guards' overtime and sick leave.
"It's kind of a fantasy budget," state Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, told prison officials. "We're going to tear up your credit card."
Yesterday's hearing is the latest on the nation's largest prison system, where myriad problems have presented Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with his largest and most unexpected policy crisis since he took office in November.
Complaints about rampant overspending follow searing criticism this year by a federal overseer and national experts, and tearful testimony from earlier Senate witnesses who alleged the system is dominated by a powerful guards union and a "code of silence" that punishes whistle-blowers.
The prison system has ignored its budget and the Legislature's direction so blatantly that senators portrayed the action as a power struggle with lawmakers who ostensibly hold the purse strings.
The department hired 1,000 employees with no legislative approval, complained budget subcommittee Chairman Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford, criticizing the system's "chronic overspending."
The department treats its budget like "funny money," Speier said.
Schwarzenegger has said he wants to renegotiate the lucrative contract former Gov. Gray Davis signed with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association that will give the guards a 7 percent salary increase this year and 10 percent next year.
His first budget, submitted last month, includes $446 million in unspecified cuts, but Schwarzenegger also followed Davis' practice by diverting $453 million from the general fund to cover overtime pay for prison guards and other budget overruns.
Last year's $5.3 million in spending was 10 percent over budget.
Spending increased 31 percent from 1999 to 2003, with senators complaining the system's budget has gone up even as the state's inmate population has declined. It costs the state $33,152 annually for each of its 161,000 inmates; two-thirds of the cost pays for prison employees.
Acting Corrections Director Rick Rimmer said he is trying to force reforms, and hopes to have a plan in place by April.
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