SUPPORTERS OF ISSUE 1 PREDICT TAX SAVINGS

Seeking to offset one big number with another, Issue 1 supporters released
a study yesterday that says the drug offenders treatment initiative would
spend $247 million to save $356 million.

Net savings to Ohio taxpayers: $21.3 million the first year, and $109
million over the first six years, according to the Ohio Campaign for New
Drug Policies.

The study is the first detailed attempt by proponents or opponents to
quantify the financial impact of the proposed constitutional amendment. It
also temporarily shifted the debate from the war on drugs and whether the
amendment contains too much carrot and not enough stick to the initiative's
effect on Ohioans' wallets and purses.

The amendment would require the state to offer treatment in lieu of prison
to some nonviolent drug offenders, regardless of how many previous drug
offenses they have had. Drug traffickers would not be eligible.

A spokeswoman for Ohioans Against Unsafe Drug Laws said the projected
savings are pure fiction, although she was unable to provide any data on
whether the measure would cost or save taxpayers money. The coalition is
headed by first lady Hope Taft and Toledo Mayor Jack Ford.

"They [Issue 1 supporters] want to address this issue of cost-savings, yet
they didn't write that into the amendment," said the spokeswoman, Jenny
Camper. "Their numbers are not matching up, so they're doing whatever they
can. They're going to the extreme of manipulating numbers and lying to the
press about how many people this would affect."

On the contrary, said Issue 1 campaign Director Ed Orlett, the numbers are
based on data from state prison officials and the nonpartisan Ohio Criminal
Sentencing Commission.

Factoring in a 35 percent treatment failure rate, the study says 4,133
people a year would be diverted into treatment from prisons, jails and
community-based correctional facilities. That figure includes people who
would be diverted to treatment for violating their parole by committing a
nonviolent drug offense.

The annual savings from treating those people instead of locking them up
would be $59.3 million, or $356 million over six years, the study says.

That's unrealistic, according to the sentencing commission, because it
optimistically presumes that a prison will close.

"I think they're acting in good faith with their estimates, but while some
of what they're saying might happen, all of it certainly won't," said the
commission's executive director, David Diroll. "There's no way you can get
to that amount [$109 million in net savings], and we don't really think you
can get close to that amount."

For example, he said, if a prison doesn't close, the study's cost-savings
figure - based on the average $63.23 a day that it costs to house a
prisoner - goes out the window because all the state would save is marginal
costs such as food and clothing.

Diroll said the $63.23 figure also is inflated because it includes
maximum-security beds, which low-level drug offenders don't occupy.