STATE'S PRISON BUDGET SOARS

Court Orders and Ballot Measures Like Jessica's Law Have Helped Fuel
Spending, Which Has Climbed 79% Since '03.

SACRAMENTO -- When a judge put Robert Sillen in charge of healthcare
in California prisons, the medical staff was vastly underpaid.
Software used to track inmates' medical histories could not transfer
information between computers.

San Quentin State Prison had only one phone line for incoming calls
and none to dial out, isolating doctors who needed to talk to
specialists and other professionals.

"It's just shameful what the state has done," Sillen said in an interview.

He has been trying to fix things, but solutions come at a price:
Healthcare spending in state prisons has doubled in the last two years.

Sillen's court-ordered intervention is just one reason California's
prison spending has far outpaced the swelling number of inmates,
contributing to the state's projected $14-billion budget gap, which
would be the worst since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's election in 2003.

The prison population has grown by 8% since 2003, to more than
173,000. But the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's
budget has exploded, increasing 79% to $8.5 billion, and is expected
to top $10 billion next year.

Prison spending now is greater than that for any other major program
except public schools and healthcare for the poor. The nonpartisan
legislative analyst's office projects 6% annual increases in prison
spending for the next five years as a new prison and dozens of
building additions are constructed and opened.

"We know there's a lot coming down the pike," said Daniel Carson, who
oversees criminal justice spending for the legislative analyst.

Several causes of the department's fiscal metastasis are the same
that plague many parts of California's $145-billion state budget:
spending set at the ballot box and in the courts; bureaucratic waste;
and more than a decade of neglect in construction, repairs and other
improvements. In addition, failed efforts to help inmates stay away
from crime after their release have boosted prison spending.

The fiscal problems might not be so severe if the prison population
had dropped as crime rates went down. But it hasn't, largely because
lawmakers have been lengthening sentences and many released inmates
end up back behind bars for new crimes.

Voters too have contributed to the burgeoning budget, notably by
approving the three strikes initiative in 1994, which authorized life
imprisonment for repeat felons, and Jessica's Law in November 2006.
The latter measure, supported by 70% of voters, restricts where
released sex offenders can live and requires that they be tracked by
satellite for life. Over time, the cost of tracking paroled offenders
could grow to $100 million or more, the state says.

Another initiative is being readied for the ballot next year by the
authors of last year's measure: Sharon and George Runner, two
Republican lawmakers from Lancaster; she in the Assembly and he in
the Senate. The proposed initiative, which has not yet qualified,
would require the state to spend nearly $1 billion to combat gang
crimes and lengthen some prison sentences.

"People are trying to do one-upmanship to claim 'I'm tough on crime,'
and it has a cost to it," said Sen. Michael Machado (D-Linden), who
oversees the corrections portion of the state budget.

But spending on prison programs has not always been a good
investment. For example, some programs intended to help inmates avoid
future prison stays have proved ineffective.

A report by the inspector general in February found that the
corrections department repeatedly failed to fix problems that had
been identified in studies the department commissioned.

The report concluded that substance abuse treatment programs, which
have cost taxpayers more than $1 billion since 1989, have had no
effect on keeping people off drugs so that they don't end up back in prison.

With overflowing prisons and antiquated computers, the corrections
department has proved incapable of even such basic tasks as releasing
inmates when their time is up.

Department officials admitted this month that as many as 33,000
prisoners may be scheduled to remain behind bars longer than they
were supposed to because corrections officials miscalculated their
sentences. Over-long stays could be costing the state nearly $26
million extra each year.

Lawmakers have postponed dealing with prison overpopulation for so
long that federal courts, which put Sillen in charge of medical care
in early 2006, are considering imposing a cap on the number of
inmates. That could result in lower prison spending.

"We have not added to our prison capacity to any significant degree
since the 1980s," said Assemblyman Roger Niello of Fair Oaks, the
highest-ranking Republican on the Assembly Budget Committee. "We have
for the past couple of decades neglected the development of our
public infrastructure generally, and the prisons are just another
part of that."

Legislators this year approved $7.4 billion in borrowing to add more
beds in hopes of appeasing the judges, but that plan may not be
sufficient to avert a court takeover of the entire system. Whatever
happens, the state is committed to the spending required to pay off the debt.

Meanwhile, prison guard salaries have escalated substantially, adding
to the spiraling expenses. That is due in large part to the political
influence of the guards union, which donates heavily to politicians
and has been an effective lobby at the Capitol.

The average monthly salary of corrections officers has increased 57%
during the current decade, to $4,959 a month, according to the department.

Sillen, for his part, has raised salaries for doctors, nurses,
dietitians and X-ray technicians to fill long-standing vacancies and
recruit more skilled employees. Prison pharmacists, for instance, who
had earned less than half the salaries they could get outside the
system, have received 64% raises to as much as $123,936 a year.

There is little sign that the growth in the prisons budget will abate
any time soon. Prison healthcare spending alone has increased 263%
since 2000, to $2.1 billion a year, and Sillen predicted that he
would raise it by as much as $500 million for the fiscal year that
begins in July.

Through the courts, Sillen has the power to order spending that not
even the governor can deny.

"We're not cutting our spending -- we're planning on increasing our
spending," Sillen said. "Our charge is to bring the system up to
constitutional muster."