Prisons: Federal Receiver threatens to tack another $4.3 billion on the budget deficit

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

From the SacBee:

Federal receiver J. Clark Kelso told the state today that he wants $70 million right away and $3.43 billion out of the deficit-ridden budget the next fiscal year to pay for prison health care facilities if lawmakers don't agree to borrow money to do it.

Kelso's letter to the Department of Finance said he anticipates needing $3.5 billion over the two subsequent fiscal years to pay for the 10,000 medical care beds he says he needs to bring the state into compliance with two federal court cases.

The bond package in the Senate faces an uphill climb as some Republicans are opposed to the package joining some questioning Dems. Kelso, for his part, says that if SB 1665 isn't passed, he'll just get the federal court to raid the general fund under its power from a court decree declaring our prison health care system unconstitutional.

I remain hopeful that the Senate will act favorably upon SB 1665, and that I will not be forced to ask you to immediately sweep all available funds and to take other extraordinary reallocations of funds to provide financing for my construction program," Kelso said in the letter. "However, I can no longer stand idly by while the state continues its pattern of prevarication."

All of this still doesn't address the underlying question of our prison system: the warehousing of California's underclass. Not only do we spend about $25K/year to keep each prisoner, we also lose the potential that many of these prisoners have. We fail to educate them, fail to rehabilitate them, and then train them to be better criminals.