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Roadmap Emerging For New Governor Scott’s $1 Billion Prison Cuts
December 21, 2010
One of Governor-elect Rick Scott’s most high-profile campaign promises – to slash $1 billion from the state’s prison system – drew a powerful response when the union representing correctional officers aired television spots warning he would start releasing inmates to reduce spending.
But a lengthy list of less-stunning belt-tightening measures is quietly emerging. Many are likely to find their way into Scott’s February budget proposal to lawmakers, those close to the incoming administration say.
“The plan was to find a billion in seven years,” said Scott spokesman Brian Burgess, disputing the Florida Police Benevolent Association’s TV spots, which implied the cut would be a first-year reduction that dramatically shrunk the Corrections Department’s $2.4 billion budget.
“We will do that and more by eliminating waste and improving efficiency,” Burgess said of the $1 billion savings claim. “Privatization isn’t necessary for us to achieve that goal, but nothing is off the table while we are still in the review and planning phase.”
The Florida Senate may be among those providing Scott with a roadmap to some savings. A recent study by the Criminal Justice Committee points out that state spending on inmate health care services hit $400 million last year – almost double the level of a decade ago. The study suggests that some of Scott’s cost-cutting could be reached by giving private vendors a bigger share of inmate care.
Meanwhile, the state’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) has sent to state legislative leaders a host of other potential prison savings, some of which mirror those also advanced by state business groups, led by Florida TaxWatch.
Expanding state drug courts to keep thousands of nonviolent criminals out of prison, expanding faith-based institutions to reduce recidivism, and expanding the use of electronic monitoring could save millions of dollars, analysts said.
But just as Scott is lining up such major repositories of cash as the Florida Retirement System and state worker health insurance for changes to extract savings, prison health care services are a big-ticket item that could rain dollars if revamped just right.
Still, done badly, the initiative could also backfire on the incoming governor.
With more than 103,915 inmates scattered across 55 prisons and 77 other lockups, the Corrections Department has had a checkered history with inmate health. A federal court in the milestone Costello v. Florida case in 1979 found that inadequate medical care amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in the state, prompting more than two decades of litigation and continued federal oversight of prison health care.
The Correctional Medical Authority was formed in 1986 to provide independent evaluation of the prison system’s health care services. CMA’s future also is in doubt, with allies of Scott and public health leaders recommending it be moved out of the Department of Health, as part of a likely overhaul of that agency.
About one-third of inmate health care dollars currently go to community providers. But the department has scaled back an ambitious, five-year privatized effort in South Florida after first having trouble with vendor, Wexford Health Sources, Inc., who failed to meet some of its contract requirements, and then later Prison Health Services, now PHS Correctional Healthcare, which dropped its state contract in 2006 after facing higher-than-expected hospitalization rates.
PHS, which has prison health contracts in 20 states, is headquartered in suburban Nashville, near where Scott’s former health care company, Columbia/HCA, was anchored. States with larger prison systems than Florida’s, Texas and California, contract privately for much of their inmate health care.
“We’d be excited at the prospect of putting in a proposal if the state moves in the direction of privatizing,” said Martha Harbin, a Florida spokeswoman for PHS. “Inmates are the only people with a constitutional guarantee of health care and it has to meet a community standard of care. That can be expensive. But with a private company, you’re getting a centralized management, saving on malpractice insurance…and you might even be able to have some inmates become eligible for Medicaid.”
Howard Simon, executive director of Florida’s ACLU, which has represented inmates in civil rights cases, said he hopes Scott puts as much emphasis on changing sentencing laws as he does on cutting prison costs through layoffs of correctional officers or privatizing health care.
“If you don’t have sentencing reform, drug treatment and the expanded use of drug courts to keep people out of prison, you are just adding to the inmate population that is exploding in the prison system,” Simon said.
Matt Puckett, a PBA spokesman, said it’s clear Scott’s $1 billion in corrections cuts may not involve wholesale inmate releases. But the changes may prove controversial on another level.
“I think you’re going to see more taxpayer money going to for-profit corporations providing care and treatment of inmates,” Puckett said.
Pictured: A guard tower rises above Century Correctional Institution. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
By John Kennedy
The News Service Florida
Comments
25 Responses to “Roadmap Emerging For New Governor Scott’s $1 Billion Prison Cuts”
The fact is that we are spending twice as much to maintain our prisons because of incarceration of people addicted to drugs and with mental health problems that should be treated not incarcerated. In Charlotte County, drug addicts are ordered by the judge to attend drug rehabilitation by attending a one-hour class, once a week and they wonder why it’s not working, Are they kidding? I am all for early release of non-violent inmates, especially military veterans and others that became addicted through prescribed medications and subsequently got into trouble with illegal drugs and poor judgment.
to sweetie…..if you believe the line of crap your friend is feeding you about cold meals and no heat you’d believe anything.
REGARDING:
“I say we let everyone out and put them to work instead , closely watched work and education program,”
Murderers, rapists, thieves, pedophiles, arsonists, psychopaths, fox hunters??
Are you opening your home to all of them? Actually, if you let them all out, you are opening all of our homes to all of them.
And how many more people will it take if they are scattered all over?
Of course, it’s possible. GPS on each and every one, cameras and microphones monitoring them all the time–including heart rate for when they get excited, maybe some sort of disabling device in case they start to commit a crime…
It might work, if done properly.
David just joking about the fox hunters
I say we let everyone out and put them to work instead , closely watched work and education program, so they will be less likely to turn to crime when they are released
I agree with Frank. What is death row for? Is it to let the citizens pay for Someone to sit in prison for years when they actually have “Electric Chairs” to cut that cost for us. I know people working in the prison systems and most prisoners are repeat offenders. When will it end?
I agree with Frank. What is death row for? Is it to let the citizens pay for Someone to sit in prison for years when they actually have “Electric Chairs” to cut. that cost for us.
Frank, you are a sick, sad, bloodthirsty person. Ignorance flows out your pores. You don’t know the first thing about prison or the drug trade, and you would be wise not to make any more comments on the subject.
If you want to stop reoffenders it’s easy invoke the death sentenct on all drug dealers and pimps you’ll cut the prison population in half very quickly ! Most of tose guys don’t care if they get caught, it’s like a vacation they can hang out with their home boys and make plan for when they get out of how to better serve there customers! Really most of these people do not have the same mind set as the everyday hard working person, their using the system to get free health care and a vaction then go right back to dealing drugs it’s (easy money) and no taxes hey they can buy another set of 24’s for their baby momma’s car and some diapers for the baby! Wake up people jail is suppose to make you not want to come back ,, it’s suppose to be a deturant ! Not a vaction!
To Sweetie. The fact of the matter is simply this; Everyone makes his or her own choice. If you lay down with dogs you will surely smell of the same.
If our state would look at getting the snowbirds back up north then there would be jobs for the Floridians. Snowbirds live in Florida 3-4 months out of the year, do they rent, live in condos on the beach or motorhomes and pay no property taxes, etc.? Most snowbirds had big union jobs. The Correctional Officers are needed very much, but the pyramid is turned upside down. If the govornor would reduce at the top and leave the CO’s alone everything would go just fine. You have to remember there are lawyers in prison just like low income people.
We have got to do something there is no longer anything that is done that is not against the law in this state you take a leak outside behind a dumpster you are a Sex offender.. you have a wreck and someone dies you are a murderer and go to prison. No one is safe in this state when it comes to going to prison unless you have money and then thats also getting to be a bit easier to get around too. Something has to be done!
As for Correctional Officers believe me they do not need to be paying so many of them to do a job that less can do I have seen a prison run over the weekend when inmates are not working with less officers then they have though out the week when they are working all day… And the double dippers need to go!! I do not mind paying those people that work in the Department of Corrections to do a job but if they don’t do that job the way it should be done then they do not belong there.
Florida is in trouble with this new baldheaded crook. You can just look at him and his previous record with misusing Medicare funds. He bought the governor’s office with misleading ads and FL fell for it.
“eliminating waste and improving efficiency” – now if you can corral that you may make a decent governor, not just in the prison system but in the entire state.
REGARDING:
“So people voted for a guy that is going to take away a lot of jobs? Isn’t that backwards?”
Not necessarily.
If less money is needed to do the job right of keeping dangerous people off the streets, that would be money left in the pockets of the citizens, who would in turn spend the money for a better life–or at least more material goods and services. Providing those goods and services would provide jobs for other people (although a number of them may only speak Mandarin). Some of the jobs created would be in Florida.
In fact, if all inmates could be restrained from harming others free of charge, can you really see any reason to have correctional officers? They can’t be, so don’t panic if you are a correctional officer; I’m just talking about the purpose of correctional officers and expenditures of governmental funds. Prison is not a jobs program; it’s a public safety system: Keep the hurtful people from the hurtable people and convince them to not hurt us when they get out. We often get confused and lock up people who are not dangerous to our safety or property, but that’s neither here nor there, it’s an aspect of nature that we want to make others do what we think they should do.
David for as much government as is NECESSARY
Prisons are not always getting the prisoners the basics they need to live. I know someone who was in prison and they cut food from 2400 calories a day to 1800 a day. They would only give milk a couple of days a week, juice a couple of days a week, and so on. But, every day lunch consisted of a peanut butter sandwich and a piece of fruit and is served in paper bag. They only get one hot meal per day and on Sunday morning, they may get pancakes. The rest of the time, it is cold and in a paper bag. If they have loved ones on the outside, they can buy commissary items, such as ramen noodles, but they have to pay for it themselves. I watched my friend drop over 40 pounds the first three months he was there because he wasn’t getting enough to eat. People think that all the prisoners do is lay up and watch television all day, but the truth is, the prisoners have to live an awful life, which is deserved depending on the crime, to have no privacy, no proper food, no heat, no air conditioning (not in prison, only in jails) and the television watching is monitored and they watch what is on the agenda, not something of their choice. The person I know didn’t even get underwear, except one pair that he hand washed at night and the clothes smelled and were always stained from not being clean. And, if he had gotten caught washing out his underwear, there was some sort of punishment for that. Also, the person I know was in prison for a non-violent crime and he was somehow put in the same place with those who were in for life for murder, rape, and domestic violence that led to extreme violence. At night, one inmate would just walk around and my friend would wake up with this person standing over his bed, staring at him. I do believe in the meaning of the prison system, but if the inmates are not receiving clothes or food, then where is the money going? By the way, most of the CO’s were pretty decent and showed respect. They do so to keep the tempers down, so they have a pretty hard time, too, and don’t get paid a lot. So, to me, it seems like the money is not going to the care of the inmates and possibly not to the CO’s, either. If that is the case, then where to they intend to pull $1 billion from? Because I have a feeling that the money is going into someone’s personal pocket and good luck finding out who!
So people voted for a guy that is going to take away a lot of jobs? Isn’t that backwards?
Doesn’t our state have a low enough unemployment rate without planning to lay off correctional officers as well, who work long hours without sufficient help as it is? Also, you’d be appalled to know the amount of reoffenders that keep going in and out of our prison systems which just shows that letting them out for what you call “minor offences” is not the answer either. The majority seem to reoffend and for a good portion of them, the offences get worse.
Hey guys take a look! Here is a politician who is actually rolling up his sleeves and getting ready to tackle this state. Finally we will have some actions to go along with all the fluffy words that have been flying around for the last year. I’m sure there will be a lot of criticism for the Governor, but as long as he’s willing to actually do something to fix this state and he’s willing to tell us what he’s going to do, even if we won’t like it, that’s good. I think it will hurt, but four years from now we will all love him. So let’s keep him around for a while, and then send him to Washington to fix that mess. haha
Let’s not go about tearing down Gov elect Scott just because of what you might think. Al least he has a plan which is something we haven’t had for four years. If CNN has anything to say I wouldn’t believe it. They are very biased and their opinions are not based on lots of facts.
It would help tremendously if our judicial system was not locking up every minor crime but doing measures to make them pay back for their crimes. The fact is once you lock up someone and give them a criminal record they are in most instances finished. No matter what we say about someone just needs to serve time and then they can return to society is not the reality. We should end our endless wasteful “War on Drugs” and focus on viable measures. This would allow the system to focus on major offenders. We lock up far too many people for just minor offenses as compared to all other industrialized nations.
With Federal Judges giving inmates whatever they want this will not end soon..The State Of Alabama is so stressed by this now.Both states need really strong governors who wont cave to private prisons.The money saving sounds good but Florida and Alabama have really good correctional academies that train these officers for this career.Private prison officers are lucky if they get paid 10.00 an hour…Yep u got it,,U get what you pay for…With not knowing what officers you can trust now, it will be extremly difficult to recruit and retain honest officers for 10.00 an hour…The state of Alabama hasnt received a raise in 4 years (Thank U GOVERNOR) But LIKe U guys in Florida .EVERY inmate in the state of ALABAMA have BLUE CROSS insurance…no kidding..do the research….BOTH states need GOVERNORS worth being elected.
Building, maintaining and filling up prisons is one of the best ways our gov’t can spend money. This is one of the only ways to directly improve the quality of life for the people who deserve i.e. law abiding citizens.
CNN is certainly the best source on all that is crooked. The bottom-line is that every department in the state government is going to have to learn to live with less. Everything is on the table. If a private company can do a better job for less we’ve got to consider that option. I’m sure most people don’t care if the government picks up garbage or a private company does it. All they care about is the fact that the garbage gets picked up every week at a fair price. If as a society we decide people have to spend time behind bars for committing a crime, then we need to ensure the service of incarceration is done humanely and efficiently. Again, if a private company can do a better job at a lower price we have to consider the option.
By the way, every governor spends millions to get into office. I’m sure the office of governor could hardly be considered an investment. If it was the IRS would already have a special tax for that.
All the news agencies said this govenor-elect is crooked including CNN.
$400 Million on health care for inmates. We need to look at privatizing? As I recall a certain governor elect has had issues with the healthcare industry. Theres a reason he spent millions to get into office. I have a feeling that his investment is about to see the rewards (for him not us.) Lets get to work!