GOVERNOR SEEKS RISE IN PRISON SPENDING

SACRAMENTO - As he seeks to rein in California's budget, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger is finding that there's some state spending even he can't
control.

With the state's prison population surging to an all-time record, the
Schwarzenegger administration in late September alerted lawmakers that it
might need an additional $109 million to manage the nation's largest
correctional system, according to documents obtained Tuesday by the Mercury
News.

Coincidentally, that is roughly equal to the $108 million in labor
concessions the governor negotiated earlier this year with prison guards.

Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, a critic of the prison system, blasted the
budget woes as "indefensible." She said Schwarzenegger could discard his
entire plan to reform government and still save taxpayers money if he
focused just on cutting costs in the prison system.

The latest cost-overrun comes on top of more than $700 million in
overspending during the past four years driven by rising labor costs.

The new problems surfaced in September, just three months after the fiscal
year began July 1. Corrections Director Jeanne Woodford told the Department
of Finance in a Sept. 30 letter that her agency was spending money "at a
rate exceeding the budgeted levels" in the fiscal year that began July 1.

"The actual inmate population is significantly higher than projected" last
May, she wrote.

The prison population on Aug. 31 was 164,604, up 4 percent from the
department's projections. With inmates sleeping in hallways and gyms, the
population has reached twice what the state's 32 prisons are designed to hold.

If these trends continue, Woodford said, the department would rack up $109
million more in expenses than anticipated. Overall, state spending on
corrections runs about $6 billion a year.

Last month, the Schwarzenegger administration's Finance Department told
legislative budget writers about the higher figures. H.D. Palmer, a
spokesman for the department, said Tuesday that the administration has
"made significant strides toward fiscal responsibility."

But Speier is unconvinced. "There is no bigger credit card in the state
than the credit card the governor has given the Department of Corrections,"
she said. "If he wants to make good on his promise to tear up the credit
card, he needs to start there."

Speier chairs the Senate Government Oversight Committee, which has examined
the prison system. Speier said that she wasn't sure if she believed the
latest prison population figures, which are considerably higher than projected.

George Kostyrko, a corrections spokesman, said department estimates were
off largely because counties are sending the state more criminals than
anticipated.

The prison population growth comes as violent crime in the state's largest
cities and counties actually dropped 3.8 percent in the first six months of
the year, according to the state Department of Justice. During the same
period, property crime rose 0.5 percent.