Will Arizona Prisons sustain
budget cuts?
By Carl R. ToersBijns
The Arizona governor and
state legislature will have some tough choices to make this coming session
regarding budget cuts and contingency plans for their operating funding costs.
It is likely that the big bus of the Corrections Department will have to take
some of those cuts and rely on operating their prisons with a reduction in
staff and other resources.
Although any closures of
prisons is not likely to happen as it is in other states, there will be a big
change how they will have to operate them and endure the entire fiscal year on
less money than last year or the year before. It will depend on how deep the
cuts are and what has to be cut back in order to meet allocations and
expectations.
Although it may seem
premature, it is likely that at this moment, based on feedback from the
governor’s office and key legislators, initial budget scenarios are being
developed as well as revised staffing patterns based on prison population
projections and other anticipated needs.
The agency will address
attrition rates, pending retirements, freeze hiring and maintain a strategy for
vacancy savings for the entire fiscal year leaving staff pretty much with what
is left over after these employees leave state service. If the past is an
indication of the future, disciplinary actions will increase and probation
periods will be used to lay off officers before they reach their permanent
status and termination will be used as a management tool to reduce staffing
patterns and personnel.
The director and his staff
will submit various formats of scenarios that will allow the governor’s staff
and legislative members a good peek at what the bottom line is and how deep a
cut the agency can survive without compromising public safety. The main
concerns are three fold; personnel and benefits, medical costs and other fixed
expenses related to prison capacity and population needs.
Perhaps there will be a shift
in priorities and the director will re-allocate more resources towards new or
existing community corrections programming that are less costly and easier to
manage. They will have to focus on
reducing their enormous water and electric utility bills and implement other
waste reduction methods to acquire a better handle on the costs of food and
clothing, cable services, and other costs that may be considered either
frivolous or unnecessary for prisons to have.
The director will likely
increase the number of low custody level prison work details outside the
prisons and into the communities to acquire shared funding for operating such
mutual government agreements that include inmate work details for county and
municipal government agencies and related public services. This is a viable avenue for the agency but
will require the mutual agencies to provide the supervision and transport costs
in order to be eligible for such inmate services within their community and
local government public works.
Perhaps for once in the
last five years, there will be a serious focus on recidivism and manage it more
effectively so that the prison population may indeed be reduced and the
incident of repeat offenders coming back into prisons be reduced by looking at
those technical violators a little closer and continue their parole time in the
community corrections programs rather than paying a premium price for a bed
inside the prisons.
You more than will likely
see a consolidation plan with the private prison contractors for transferring
some of the state’s secondary custodial roles to the private prisons to save
money and reduce staffing costs. This would also cancel or reduce some of the
private vendor contracts the state currently has to keep essential services
going but at a cost that can be done cheaper if absorbed in the consolidation
plan.
December 23, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment