In 2006, a federal judge declared the health care system in California’s 33 state prisons so poor that it violates inmates’ constitutional rights.
By Don Thompson
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO – The federal receiver in charge of California’s inmate health care system on Wednesday asked a judge to seize $8 billion from the state’s cash-strapped treasury over the next five years.
Court-appointed receiver Clark Kelso said he needs the money to build new medical units for 10,000 sick or mentally ill inmates. Kelso also asked the judge to hold Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Controller John Chiang in contempt of court for refusing to allocate the money.
The request to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson in San Francisco comes as lawmakers remain at odds over how to cope with California’s $15.2 billion deficit seven weeks after the start of the fiscal year.
In 2006, a federal judge declared the health care system in California’s 33 state prisons so poor that it violates inmates’ constitutional rights.
Kelso is overseeing the reforms that are supposed to correct years of neglect and inadequate treatment. He asked the judge to seize the money only after the state Senate failed twice to pass a borrowing plan that would spread the cost of building the medical units.
He wants $6 billion for new prison health care centers and $2 billion for improving existing ones.
“We have fully explored and exhausted every avenue for securing this funding in a manner that least affects California’s taxpayers and this year’s budget process, but the state’s leaders have failed to act,” Kelso said in a statement. “Therefore, it is with great reluctance and with a sense of firm conviction, that today I seek the federal court’s intervention to secure this funding.”
If granted, Kelso’s request to take money directly from California’s treasury would make the state’s precarious budget situation even worse.
It would add $3.1 billion to the state’s budget deficit in the current year. Kelso’s motion also requests that the state pay fines of at least $2 million a day.
Lawmakers already are facing the prospect of cutting billions of dollars from basic state services and perhaps raising billions in taxes just to balance this year’s budget.
Schwarzenegger’s office said the administration will continue to work with Kelso and lawmakers to provide the health care funding “in a fiscally responsible way.”
“Obviously, the state’s in a precarious financial situation right now, but we have a responsibility to continue to work with the Legislature to provide the receiver the resources he needs,” spokesman Aaron McLear said.
The controller’s office did not have an immediate response to Kelso’s motion.
California’s prison system has been besieged for years, primarily because of overcrowding. Schwarzenegger has tried to relieve the crowding by sending thousands of inmates to private prisons in other states, but problems persist.
The system is packed with about 159,000 inmates, well above the prisons’ designed capacity of about 100,000.
Inmate advocacy groups say the overstuffed conditions lead to a long list of problems, including inadequate medical care and mental health treatment, and have filed numerous lawsuits against the state.
Many of those cases have been consolidated under a panel of three federal judges.
Last year, Schwarzenegger and lawmakers passed a jail and prison construction plan they hoped would go a long way to resolving the lawsuits.
They approved spending $7.4 billion to build 53,000 prison and county jail cells to ease crowding and create more space for inmate medical care.
The building program has not proceeded as hoped, and Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to allocate any more money until the Legislature agrees on how to spend the money it approved last year.
Republicans in the Senate blocked Kelso’s request twice last May. The measure must be passed by a two-thirds majority, which requires Republican support in both houses of the Legislature.
On Wednesday, they seemed in no mood to bend to Kelso’s demand and questioned how he arrived at $8 billion. That’s almost as much as the entire annual budget – about $10.1 billion – for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, R-Clovis, called Kelso’s figure “a ridiculous sum.” He questioned how the state could justify spending that amount on inmate medical care “when hardworking taxpayers can’t even get health care in California.”
Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, who is an intervener in the health care lawsuit, said he agrees the state needs to improve its delivery of health care. But he said the federal courts have never studied in detail how the state should do that.
“No receiver has ever defined what constitutes a constitutional level of health care,” Spitzer said. “They’re throwing a lot of money at a standard that’s never been established.”
Kelso said he can’t wait any longer.
Building new medical units for chronically ill, disabled or older inmates “goes to the very heart of the receiver’s remedial program,” he said in a statement.
He previously said he needed $7 billion, but on Wednesday said that had since risen to $8 billion.
Kelso warned lawmakers in May that he would ask the federal judge to seize the money from the state’s general fund, which pays for most state programs. Legislators and Schwarzenegger said doing so would force cuts in other state services.
On Wednesday, Kelso told reporters he hoped his action would force a settlement with the state before a hearing on his motion, which he wants scheduled for Sept. 22. If there is no settlement by then, he asked the judge to order Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang to appear personally at the hearing.
Associated Press Writers Juliet Williams and Samantha Young contributed to this report.