By Rich Cholodofsky
Tribune-Review
GREENSBURG, Pa. — Westmoreland County Prison inmates will have to begin paying for their education as a result of proposed state budget cuts, Warden John Walton said.
Walton told the prison board on Monday that Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget will slash grant money given to the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette Inc., which has partially paid for the jail’s education programs.
The Private Industry Council provided about 80 inmates a year with instruction to help them obtain a general high school equivalency degree or other basic adult education, such as reading and writing classes.
“We’re getting penalized in the budget. We’re getting hit pretty hard,” Walton said.
The program is expected to cost more than $32,000 this year, with about half paid from a grant to the Private Industry Council. Inmates now will have to pick up the tab for the program’s entire cost.
Walton said the inmate welfare fund will be used to pay for education classes. That fund is accrued through profits generated by sales of supplies to inmates at the jail’s commissary and money that inmates pay to use the telephone.
According to an unaudited financial statement in the county controller’s office, that fund held more than $74,000 at the end of 2010.
That money has been used to pay for basic supplies for inmates, cable television bills, books and exercise equipment, Walton said.