RECKLESSNESS ENDS UP COSTING MONEY, NOT SAVING IT

There is a natural tendency among politicians new to Tallahassee to
assume that when they encounter resistance to change it is because of
inertia rather than informed experience. The latest debacle involves
the bold and quick decision by the Republican-led Legislature to
privatize 30 state prison facilities in 18 South Florida counties. A
minor detail not discussed at the time: up to $25 million in public
money to provide severance pay to more than 4,000 Department of
Corrections workers.

Corrections staffers say they told the legislative staff about the
expense, but it was never discussed openly nor addressed in this
year's state budget. Now it appears the agency will need to find the
money - a prospect the corrections secretary warned "may just cripple
the agency" - or seek special dispensation from the Joint Legislative
Budget Commission.

The state's rush to privatize more prisons already had looked rash.
While state law requires private prisons to cost 7 percent less, it's
never clear whether those cost savings actually materialize. The
Legislature's research agency, the Office of Program Policy Analysis
and Governmental Accountability, has acknowledged as much. The office
noted that while private prisons may cost less, they house far fewer
inmates with special medical needs, which drives their costs below
public-run facilities.

A surer way to cut costs would be to revisit the state's mandatory
minimum sentencing for low-risk offenders and invest in prison
programs to reduce recidivism - ideas Corrections Secretary Ed Buss
supports but ones that have received short shrift from Gov. Rick Scott
and Republican lawmakers.

Instead, the Republican leadership in Tallahassee has chosen to hand
off a major function of public safety to a politically active,
for-profit enterprise without fully vetting the details in public. The
same recklessness isn't limited to lawmakers. Earlier this year the
Department of Environmental Protection, backed by Scott, rushed a
proposal to put campgrounds in 56 state parks before determining
whether the sites were even suitable.

Public policy isn't easily conveyed in a campaign sound bite. But too
often in modern Tallahassee, it's such rhetoric - not sound policy
analysis - that dictates the state's direction. Taxpayers deserve
better, and the $25 million they may end up giving to laid-off
corrections workers for a new private prison system that may not save
money is just one more piece of evidence.