PRISONERS MAY GO FREE, RILEY SAYS

Governor, Lawmakers To Trim Budget

MONTGOMERY - Alabama in coming months likely will give early releases from
prison to between 5,000 and 6,000 state inmates convicted of nonviolent
crimes, Gov. Bob Riley said Wednesday.

State budgets he will propose for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 also
would cut spending so that teachers and other public school and state
employees would have to pay more for health insurance coverage, and
Medicaid pharmacy benefits and nursing home care for poor people would have
to be reduced.

Those are just some of the cuts in state services and benefits Riley and
key lawmakers discussed over lunch Wednesday, the day after voters by a 2-1
margin rejected his plan to raise taxes by $1.2 billion a year.

Riley in a brief interview declined to give details, saying he and his
staff still were adjusting figures in the state budgets that they plan to
present to the Legislature.

But lawmakers in that meeting said many state agencies may face up to 18
percent cuts next year and non-state government agencies may be chopped
from the budget entirely.

They expect Riley to call them into special session starting Monday to pass
next year's operating budget for state agencies and education budget for
public schools and colleges. Lawmakers must pass the spending plans before
Oct. 1 or agencies and schools could start shutting down.

Riley said he plans to publicly release his proposed budgets by Friday.

Lawmakers could adjust them by shifting dollars from agency to agency. But
lawmakers said the budgets would reflect no new taxes and would trim
spending to fit expected tax collections and other revenues next year.

"We had a clear mandate from the people of Alabama to reduce government
before we even considered any additional revenue," Riley said.

No new taxes:

For months, he has said the state faces a $675 million budget shortfall in
the next budget year. Some repayments to savings accounts the state tapped
to make ends meet could be delayed, but that still would leave the state
about $600 million short of what Riley says is needed to maintain state
services and employee benefits at current levels.

Alabama does have $223 million left in a federal grant that could be used
to trim that shortfall. Lawmakers said all that money would be spent in the
coming year, leaving them to decide how to replace the one-time money the
following year.

Riley said he would not ask lawmakers in the special session to consider
any stopgap tax or gambling measure to raise money.

If taxes and gambling plans are not included in Riley's call, or list of
things he wants passed in the special session, lawmakers could pass them
only with two-thirds majorities in both the state Senate and House of
Representatives. That's not likely.

Riley said he shared his draft budget with key lawmakers to see if they had
any better ideas before he releases his final versions.

One of those lawmakers, state Rep. Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, said, "The
governor has done an admirable job of trying to prioritize to make sure the
essential services are cut as little as possible."

Hubbard and others gave few details. But they did say Riley's spending
plans for next year likely would propose:

Maintaining or even raising state spending for a handful of agencies, such
as the prison system and Board of Pardons and Paroles. Agencies over child
welfare and mental health also could fare well.

Chopping General Fund spending for most other state agencies by as much as
18 percent. That is the biggest fund supporting state agencies.

Ending state funding for non-state agencies and colleges. Some of the
Birmingham-area agencies and schools that could be affected, and the
amounts they got this year, include: Children's Hospital, $846,545; Miles
College, $346,872; Helen Keller Eye Research, $318,671; McWane Center,
$297,048; Children's Theatre of Birmingham, $166,347; Birmingham Civil
Rights Museum, $118,819; and Children's Theatre of Birmingham-Summerfest,
$23,764.

Also among those on the chopping block are: Tuskegee University, $4.7
million; child advocacy centers statewide, $2.8 million; Coalition Against
Domestic Violence, $814,332; Talladega College, $485,009; Marion Institute,
$414,278; AIDS Task Force, $317,992; and Lyman Ward military academy in
Camp Hill, $193,328.