Committee boosts Department of Correction budget
March 1, 2005 7:27 PM

The Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho The Legislature's budget committee has approved a more than seven percent increase to the Department of Correction's budget.

That brings the Correction budget to 118-point-five (M) million dollars. It's less than what the department asked for. But it's eight (M) million more than what lawmakers approved last year.

Department of Correction Director Tom Beauclair says the budget only takes care of growth for maybe a year.

He says prisons and jails are full.

The prison population is expected to hit just under 65 hundred by the end of June. The state's prisons are built to hold just more than six thousand inmates.

Prisoners have been housed in county jails, prison gymnasiums and barracks-style tents.

Representative Darrell Bolz says the state should support prison funding.

But Senator Elliot Werk says lawmakers would do better to focus on sentencing reforms

Wayne Hoffman
The Idaho Statesman | Edition Date: 03-02-2005

Agencies for blind, elderly get much smaller increases

Forced to pay for skyrocketing increases in Idaho's prison population, the Legislature's budget committee on Tuesday rejected more taxpayer support for programs benefiting the elderly and the blind, while it boosted the Department of Correction budget by 7.3 percent.

The votes for a $118.5 million general fund corrections budget came despite objections from Democrats, who said the state should emphasize criminal sentence reforms instead.

And even though the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted to give the agency $8 million more than what lawmakers approved a year ago, Department of Correction Director Tom Beauclair told reporters that the state's overflowing prison system would continue to operate "at a tipping point."

"Prisons are full. County jails are full. (The budget) takes care of growth maybe for a year. That's it," Beauclair said.

The department had asked for $124 million from taxpayers, an increase of 12 percent, prompted almost entirely by the burgeoning prison population.

The prison population is expected to hit 6,481 by the end of June, an increase of more than 650 since the count remained relatively flat two years ago.

The state's prisons have a capacity of slightly more than 6,000 inmates. Extra prisoners have been housed in county jails, on cots in the gymnasium of the prison at Cottonwood, with double-bunking at the medium-security prison near Boise and in barracks-style tents at St. Anthony and Boise.

The surge in inmates isn't expected to diminish in the foreseeable future, and the department is expected to pick up 365 more prisoners by June 30, 2006.

"I don't like the cost any more than anybody else does, but when you have inmates, you have to provide the services," Caldwell Republican Rep. Darrell Bolz said.

Next year's proposed budget does include $250,000 to underwrite a program meant to intervene with problem parolees and probationers and keep them from going back to prison. Democratic Rep. Margaret Henbest of Boise called that program "one bright light, maybe, in the budget."

But Democratic Sen. Elliot Werk of Boise complained growth in the prison population draws money away from other state agencies that could use a fresh infusion of cash. He said lawmakers should instead consider sentencing reforms.

"We're not giving hardly anything to them, to provide services to our population, and yet we keep that fire hose going every year and on and on and on. At some point it's just got to stop," Werk said.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has empaneled a special commission to look at the issue this year.

Last week, the joint committee agreed to supply the department with $4.4 million in emergency cash pay for additional inmate beds and medical costs for the current budget year, which ends June 30.

Meanwhile, the committee voted to give the Commission on Aging just $4,200 more than a year ago. The $4.5 million budget will not include the $250,000 Kempthorne recommended to beef up adult protection services, homemaker services and the delivery of meals to homebound seniors.

The committee also denied $346,000 to the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Most of the money was going to be used to replace an aged computer system.

Kempthorne spokesman Mark Snider said the budget lawmakers set will end up costing the state more because seniors who can't stay in their homes will be pushed onto pricey Medicaid rolls. Likewise, waiting to replace the computer system, Snider said, will force the state to pay more as the cost for the same system escalates year after year.

The committee also denied $346,000 to the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Most of the money was going to be used to replace an aged computer system.

Kempthorne spokesman Mark Snider said the budget lawmakers set will end up costing the state more because seniors who can't stay in their homes will be pushed onto pricey Medicaid rolls. Likewise, waiting to replace the computer system, Snider said, will force the state to pay more as the cost for the same system escalates year after year.
This kind of action is what gives me a bad taste in my mouth about most politicians.

Rather then working to find real solutions for everyone they would rather let the needy people suffer so they can maintain an image. We have many "tough on crime" politicians who feel that if the solution includes anything other then locking the inmates up and throwing away the key then it means they are soft. When in fact finding solutions to rehabilitate or give offenders a second chance doesnt mean your soft on crime. It means your trying to find a workable solution to make your state a better place to live in.