PRISON HIRING DEFIED BUDGET

1,000 Guards Added To Payroll

SACRAMENTO - During the past three years, California's troubled prison
system hired 1,000 guards at a cost of up to $100 million and without
permission from the Legislature, state finance officials revealed Wednesday.

``It makes the budget process look really very bogus,'' said Sen.
Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, after hearing testimony from the
Schwarzenegger administration about the unauthorized workers whose
salaries have contributed to the skyrocketing costs in the nation's
largest prison system.

In fact, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office told lawmakers
that the Department of Corrections budget in recent years grew at a
faster rate than the inmate population. During the past decade the
budget has doubled, to about $6 billion, while the number of inmates
has risen only 23 percent, to roughly 160,000.

The latest disclosures left even veteran lawmakers scratching their
heads about the validity of budget figures from the Department of
Corrections, which for years has been forced to seek hundreds of
millions in extra funds because of cost overruns. And it left them
questioning how the department -- saddled with a lucrative labor
contract for prison guards -- could ever live within its spending plan.

``It's a meaningless budget,'' Speier said after the nearly four-hour
hearing. ``We really don't know how these positions were filled yet.''

Officials in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance said
the employees had been hired without permission, and that they are
attempting to figure out whether it was done by wardens or other
prison officials and what exactly the employees are doing.

``It more than raised eyebrows,'' said H.D. Palmer, information chief
for the Department of Finance. He noted that the new administration is
seeking reforms to make the prison system more accountable for its
spending.

The Finance Department has determined that in the last three years of
the Davis administration, officials had failed to reconcile the budget
with authorized positions such as guard-tower staffing and other posts.

Rick Rimmer, acting director of corrections, said the mystery of the
unauthorized workers was discovered within the past couple of months.
He identified them as correctional officers and estimated their cost
to taxpayers at $80 million to $100 million a year. ``The practice has
stopped,'' he said in an interview.

Wednesday's joint hearing of a Senate budget subcommittee and a
special committee on corrections took place in a charged atmosphere
with the prison system reeling from a wave of criticism over the past
month. A federal court monitor declared the Department of Corrections
has failed to police itself, legislative investigators raised
questions of coverup after a 2002 riot at Folsom Prison and
court-appointed experts have reported widespread problems at juvenile
prisons.

As the state's budget woes have worsened in recent years, lawmakers
increasingly have examined skyrocketing costs of incarcerating inmates
in 32 prisons. Wednesday's hearing was one of the most exhaustive
public looks at the spending, though scant attention was paid to the
actual treatment of prisoners.

Among the factors contributing to the rising costs are higher than
expected overtime payments, rising sick time, increased pharmacy and
medical care bills and pensions.

Corrections officials acknowledged that one key factor was the
contract negotiated between the Davis administration and the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which took effect
about two years ago.

A 2002 analysis of the contract by the Mercury News determined that
guards would receive a more than 30 percent pay raise by 2006 and
perks that some critics said were unparalleled in other state labor
agreements. The guard union, which was a major donor to former Gov.
Gray Davis, has said the contract was negotiated fairly. And Davis
aides defended it, saying its salary provisions were tied to the
rising salaries of the California Highway Patrol and big-city police
departments.

Some critics say they respect the negotiating skills of the union and
blame prison officials and the Davis administration for not taking a
tougher stance. Union officials did not testify Wednesday, and they
could not be reached Wednesday night.

Rimmer reiterated that Schwarzenegger plans to cut $400 million from
the corrections budget and they are reining in costs as the number of
inmates declines. They also said many of the expenses are the result
of legislative reforms or court orders dictating mental health or
medical treatment to prisoners or spelling out safer ways to use force
to quell unruly inmates.