Pubdate: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2004 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.mercurynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Author: Mark Gladstone Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) GOVERNOR SEEKS RISE IN PRISON SPENDING SACRAMENTO - As he seeks to rein in California's budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is finding that there's some state spending even he can't control. With the state's prison population surging to an all-time record, the Schwarzenegger administration in late September alerted lawmakers that it might need an additional $109 million to manage the nation's largest correctional system, according to documents obtained Tuesday by the Mercury News. Coincidentally, that is roughly equal to the $108 million in labor concessions the governor negotiated earlier this year with prison guards. Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, a critic of the prison system, blasted the budget woes as "indefensible." She said Schwarzenegger could discard his entire plan to reform government and still save taxpayers money if he focused just on cutting costs in the prison system. The latest cost-overrun comes on top of more than $700 million in overspending during the past four years driven by rising labor costs. The new problems surfaced in September, just three months after the fiscal year began July 1. Corrections Director Jeanne Woodford told the Department of Finance in a Sept. 30 letter that her agency was spending money "at a rate exceeding the budgeted levels" in the fiscal year that began July 1. "The actual inmate population is significantly higher than projected" last May, she wrote. The prison population on Aug. 31 was 164,604, up 4 percent from the department's projections. With inmates sleeping in hallways and gyms, the population has reached twice what the state's 32 prisons are designed to hold. If these trends continue, Woodford said, the department would rack up $109 million more in expenses than anticipated. Overall, state spending on corrections runs about $6 billion a year. Last month, the Schwarzenegger administration's Finance Department told legislative budget writers about the higher figures. H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the department, said Tuesday that the administration has "made significant strides toward fiscal responsibility." But Speier is unconvinced. "There is no bigger credit card in the state than the credit card the governor has given the Department of Corrections," she said. "If he wants to make good on his promise to tear up the credit card, he needs to start there." Speier chairs the Senate Government Oversight Committee, which has examined the prison system. Speier said that she wasn't sure if she believed the latest prison population figures, which are considerably higher than projected. George Kostyrko, a corrections spokesman, said department estimates were off largely because counties are sending the state more criminals than anticipated. The prison population growth comes as violent crime in the state's largest cities and counties actually dropped 3.8 percent in the first six months of the year, according to the state Department of Justice. During the same period, property crime rose 0.5 percent. - ---