By Jim Ash
The Tallahassee Democrat
TALLAHASSEE — Stung by criticism from a powerful legislator that his department needs to cut more fat, the state’s chief prison boss has come up with another way to save money: chain gangs and tents.
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough is also offering to lead the charge to help the state save $1.1 billion by cutting his own salary $11,346, or 10 percent.
“I believe that my own contribution to the effort will be necessary to reflect the other contributions that will be indirectly made by department employees, and to indicate the sincerity of our effort to make sacrifices in the public interest,” McDonough wrote in a letter to Senate criminal justice appropriations chairman Victor Crist, R-Temple Terrace
To find the approximately $90 million in savings that a 4 percent budget cut would mean for his agency, McDonough wants to close Martin Correctional Institution and put about 1,000 low-risk inmates in tents in Santa Rosa and Washington counties.
The so-called “year-and-a-day” inmates wind up in the state prison system when judges sentence them to 366 days to prevent them from filling up county jails.
The inmates would be issued prison stripes and leg irons — although not chained together — and put to work helping the Department of Transportation building highways, including I-10. Shotgun-toting guards on horseback would supervise them.
McDonough estimates the forced labor could save the state about $1 million.
The proposal is sure to warm the heart of Gov. Charlie Crist, who earned the nickname “Chain Gang Charlie” when he pushed a similar proposal as a state legislator.
McDonough’s latest offer comes as legislative leaders, stymied by a lack of consensus about how to make the cuts, postponed a Sept. 18 special budget-cutting session until later this year.
Copyright 2007 The Tallahassee Democrat