Senate’s Budget Chief Says Scott Prison Cuts Worth Considering

February 16, 2011

The Senate’s chief budget writer said Tuesday it is worth considering Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to cut the Corrections Department by $82.4 million next year and close two prisons, despite criticism from the chairman of the committee that writes the criminal justice budget.

“I believe we need to look at cost saving efforts across all aspects (of the state budget),” said Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales after hearing a presentation on prison privatization plans Tuesday. “Ruling out any aspect at this point would be inappropriate. If we can save money so we can fund our schools and health care and pay for other critical needs, it’s worth looking at.”

However, Civil and Criminal Justice Budget Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Mike Fasano maintained on Tuesday his criticism of the plan to increase the number of prisoners in private facilities by 15,000.

“Is there any room in private prisons in the state of Florida?” asked Fasano, R-New Port Richey. “There’s no more room. We would have to give them additional money to take 15,000 prisoners when we have approximately 10,000 beds in the system that have already been paid for by taxpayers. I don’t get the rationale behind that.”

Particularly worrisome to Fasano is that Scott’s plan to increase the privatization of prisons calls for eliminating 1,690 jobs, including 619 corrections officers. During Scott’s campaign and transition, he promised to eventually slash $1 billion from the state’s prison system, drawing the ire of the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which ran campaign ads saying Scott would release prisoners if elected.

Tuesday, Fasano called Scott’s comments about maximizing the existing private prisons in Florida “deceitful” because he said they are already maxed out.

Alexander’s openness to the proposal followed a presentation from new Corrections Secretary Ed Buss, who spoke to the committee in his second day officially on the job. Buss told the Senate Budget Committee that privatization plans had worked well where he came from.

“Indiana probably has the most aggressive private-public (prison) partnerships in the country,” Buss said. “We saved hundreds of millions of dollars even in a smaller state like Indiana by having public-private partnerships.”

Buss noted that in Indiana, privatized prisons have a specific purpose: housing sex offenders, which he says allows the state to narrowly focus their missions.

Alexander said the new corrections secretary’s experience in Indiana with private prisons could be instructive to lawmakers in Florida grappling with a $3.6 billion budget shortfall this year with no promise of federal stimulus money, unlike the past three years.

“Looking around the nation, I’m not an expert, but there does seem to be some real savings (from privatization),” said Alexander, R-Lake Wales. “His experience is informative of what we maybe can do here. If we’re short $4 billion, we have a choice. We can cut programs in health and human services, reduce our support for education or we can look at efficiencies in prisons.”

By Keith Laing
The News Service Florida

Comments

5 Responses to “Senate’s Budget Chief Says Scott Prison Cuts Worth Considering”

  1. Rick Dailey on March 6th, 2011 2:14 pm

    Florida has some of the highest sentencing in the United States .Just by cutting from what is now 85 percent of time served for nonviolent crimnals to 65 percent would save millions per year .

  2. dee on February 20th, 2011 11:43 am

    Maybe we should give the New Gov. a chance .
    Let him tell us what He would like to do.
    Lets not just run are mouths, lets get all the facts first.
    And as for letting Judges to give sentencing ,are there any out there that will hand out death sentences that the taxs payers are not paying for- for the rest of there lives you know 20-39 years later.,Is this not a reason for why prison are over crowed because the taxs payers like supporting criminals that kill..
    Don’t get me started on this matter it makes me sick that we pay to surrport KILLERS..

  3. David Huie Green on February 18th, 2011 1:44 pm

    REGARDING:
    “State and county prisons are being run short handed because of current budget. You risk putting more Correctional Officers in danger from criminals”

    arm ALL the inmates, let them guard each other, pull all Corrections officers out of the line of fire and see how the problem solves itself.

    David for simple solutions

  4. shae on February 16th, 2011 12:46 pm

    State and county prisons are being run short handed because of current budget. You risk putting more Correctional Officers in danger from criminals already in the the system when you budget so low that those officers have to work often alone without backup readily available. Now the talk is to put them even more stretched. Please Florida government, remember that jails are full of CRIMINALS that don’t mind braking the law and hurting others in the process. Please think about ALL aspects of what your doing before you start cutting much needed programs. There’s so much more to this then money, we’re talking about people’s lives here.

  5. PolythenePam on February 16th, 2011 9:21 am

    “Particularly worrisome to Fasano is that Scott’s plan to increase the privatization of prisons calls for eliminating 1,690 jobs, including 619 corrections officers.”

    Here we go, lets cut jobs so we can save money. How about putting sentencing back in the hands of judges so they may choose some common sense punishments for non violent offenders.

    Private prisons only puts money in that one business owners hands. Get the prisoners busy building a prison for the state. (just an idea)
    We have alot of options if we use our imaginations, cutting jobs so that we end up giving the “business” to a private individual doesn’t make sense. If private prisons are such a good business model why don’t state prisons use them as a model or example and operate that way also?

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News