Cuts might force inmate releases, prison chief says

BOISE – The only way to cut more deeply into Idaho’s prisons budget than Gov. Butch Otter has proposed is to begin releasing prisoners, the state’s prisons chief warned state lawmakers Friday.

Budget cuts have hit the prison system hard enough that even guards in understaffed prisons are taking 28 unpaid furlough hours a year.

“I think it’s my duty to remind you, these kinds of cuts are not sustainable as we look into the future,” state Corrections Director Brent Reinke told the Legislature’s joint budget committee. “We walk a fine line between efficient and ineffective government. … We simply cannot continue to do more with less. We must do less if more budget cuts are required.”

Reinke said the system can function with Otter’s proposed budget, which includes a $2 million transfer from the budget stabilization fund for critical personnel costs. The governor’s budget calls for a 4.4 percent overall increase in state funding for prisons next year, to $157.3 million, after an 8.8 percent cut last year. That still leaves the department trying to house and supervise more offenders with less money than in 2008, and would require continued furloughs of department employees.

However, lawmakers concerned over lagging state revenues are leaning toward deeper cuts throughout the budget than Otter has proposed.

If Idaho had to cut another $5 million from its prison budget, Reinke said, it would have to release about 250 inmates. Legally, the department can’t do that on its own, he noted; state lawmakers would have to order it.

“It’s a policy decision that they’re going to have to make,” Reinke said. Already, because ofbudget cuts, the corrections department has imposed 80,000 unpaid furlough hours on employees, is holding open 49 positions, has cut another 44, and has eliminated paid overtime.

Idaho has one correctional officer for every 50 adult inmates, Reinke said.

The state’s inmate population is beginning to grow again after a nearly two-year drop, and a recent performance evaluation of the department suggested the prisons are understaffed as is.

“We walk a very fine line,” Reinke said. “Are we at risk? Every day. But we’ve been that way for quite a while.”

The department will open a privately run alternative placement facility in June. It will have 432 beds and offer residential substance abuse treatment programs of 90, 120 and 270 days. Reinke estimates the treatment programs will save the state $8 million by 2013 in reduced regular prison stays.

Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, asked if the state could save money in next year’s budget by delaying the opening. Reinke responded that the department is counting on the new facility because a temporary unit housing 200 inmates in a former warehouse will close in June. The department also has closed 150 of its costliest beds at existing state prisons this year because of the funding crunch.

“The (private) facility is about meeting those bed needs with our growth rate currently at 4 percent,” Reinke said. Without it, he said, the state likely would have to start sending inmates out of state again before the end of fiscal year 2011.

That’s the opposite of the department’s recent push, which has brought home all inmates housed out of state for lack of cell space to save $1.4 million a year.

Private contracts, including the alternative placement facility, are the only increases in the governor’s proposed prison budget for next year, Reinke said.

Reinke said Idaho has 1,000 fewer prisoners than 2008 projections showed it would have by now and is spending $21 million less on corrections. The reasons include lower crime rates, fewer probation revocations, accelerated parole releases, and increased use of such measures as treatment programs and drug courts, officials said.