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The San Diego Union Tribune
Prison Overspending Known for Years, Lawmakers Told

DATE: March 19, 2004
Don Thompson

SACRAMENTO - Prison wardens, administrators and the state Department of Finance knew for years Department of Corrections spending bore virtually no correlation to the budget presented by the governor and approved by the Legislature.

But there were no sanctions or safeguards to prevent the chronic cost overruns amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, witnesses told the Assembly's budget reform and efficiencies oversight committee yesterday.

The nation's largest prison system consumes nearly a dime of every dollar spent by the state.

"We've seen the deficits grow from $6 million to $500 million in just a very few years," said committee Vice Chairman Rick Keene, R-Chico.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration said the state budget to be adopted this year will incorporate more realistic projections of spending on items such as sick leave, overtime and retirement. To compensate, the administration is promising to make nearly a half-billion dollars in unspecified cuts elsewhere in the department's budget.

The department's budget is the nexus between two of the most pressing problems Schwarzenegger faces since he took office last fall: the state's massive deficit, which he knew coming in; and problems with the youth and adult prison system, which have exploded with a recent series of scathing reports and troubling incidents.

An Associated Press analysis in January found the department overspent by nearly $1.6 billion since 1999, with much of it going for overtime and sick leave.

The department's budget is so far from reality lawmakers don't know where to start making the spending cuts needed to trim the deficit, said Assembly budget committee Chairman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

Yesterday's was the third in a series of Assembly budget oversight hearings.

The prison spending imbalance began in earnest four years ago, when budget officials first began ignoring the cost of implementing legal mandates from the state and federal governments and courts and union contracts, said analysts from the department, the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, the Department of Finance, the state Auditor and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst.

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