By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Sarasota Herald Tribune
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — COST CUTTING: The goal is to find savings without seeming soft on crime
One of Gov.-elect Rick Scott’s biggest campaign promises can be illustrated with a half-cup of bread pudding.
That’s a typical dessert served several times a month for more than 100,000 Florida prisoners. It represents the $2.31 the state spends each day to feed each prisoner in the third-largest correctional system in the United States. And, for Scott, it represents the opportunity for huge cost savings.
But in this case, the proof is not in the pudding.
The idea of hardened criminals feasting on desserts might enrage some taxpayers, but how Florida chooses to feed its prisoners is a virtual non-factor in whether Scott can achieve his goal of cutting the state prison budget by $1 billion — a whopping 42 percent reduction.
Scott offered few details last week as he toured the state promoting his plans to slash spending and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Yet prison spending offers a window into the difficulty he faces going beyond rhetoric about wasteful spending to find the billions of dollars in cuts on which his economic plan is based.
In many ways, the prison budget points to one of the toughest dilemmas facing Scott and the new, more conservative leaders of the Legislature: They are committed to cutting costs, but are determined not to appear soft on crime or, worse, be saddled with a Willie Horton controversy.
Scott, who takes office Jan. 4, has said that his prison plan does not include closing prisons, changing sentencing laws or releasing prisoners.
But those who run the penal system, as well as outside analysts, say those are the choices that will have to be considered to get anywhere near the savings Scott is promising.
Which is not to say that Scott lacks support for re-evaluating the state prison system. Last year, Florida saw the second-largest increase in the country in the number of new inmates.
A growing coalition of business leaders and others say it is time for Florida’s leaders to confront politically difficult choices: diverting more non-violent offenders from the prisons; providing better mental health, drug rehabilitation and education programs to inmates; and changing some of the state’s harsh sentencing laws.
“We have not managed the system well,” said Dominic Calabro, head of Florida TaxWatch, a nonprofit, business-oriented research group that has outlined potential savings of $4 billion in the state government, including the prison system.
Among the top recommendations for the prisons, Calabro’s group called for the creation of a criminal justice commission that could use data and experts to try to unravel some of the reasons for the escalating costs of Florida’s prisons.
During his campaign, Scott, with few details, promised to slash the prison budget by cutting pay for correctional officers and other prison staff, competitively bidding health care contracts and having inmates grow their own food.
But those areas combined will not coming close to reaching Scott’s goal of saving $1 billion.
Food accounts for less than 5 percent of the $53.34 daily cost (or $19,469 annual cost) for Florida prisoners. And inmates already raise nearly 3 million pounds of crops annually on 30 farms and gardens around the state.
On health care — which accounts for $11.87 in daily costs — the department has tried to use private providers over the last decade. But an effort to let private companies run health services in the system’s South Florida region ended after a five-year run characterized by contract disputes and lawsuits.
The largest potential savings could come through the wider use of private prisons — which now account for about 10 percent of the prison beds in the state system.
Legislative leaders are unlikely to embrace a broad privatization move - saying they have seen no evidence that the private prisons are saving the state money.
Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, chairman of the Senate budget panel that oversees prison spending, said he opposes such a move.
“I would never support turning any more beds over to private hands,” Fasano said. “It’s all about public safety.”
The correctional officers’ union, which supported Scott’s opponent, Alex Sink, in the gubernatorial race, would also fight such an effort.
“Over time, there really haven’t been any reports that it saves money,” said David Murrell, a lobbyist for the Florida Police Benevolent Association.
Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, a member of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said Scott is looking for a long-term strategy to reduce prison costs.
And Dockery, who supported Scott, said she is among those lawmakers who believes Scott’s promise to overhaul the prison system provides an opportunity to consider more innovative ideas.
“I have long supported and advanced the concept that there are people in prison who would be better off in some kind of a less custodial, more rehabilitative program that would cost the taxpayers less money,” Dockery said.
But she also said proposing issues like lower sentences for drug possession can be difficult politically.
“It’s been hard to make those kind of changes for any fear of appearing to be soft on crime,” Dockery said.
One challenge is not only changing laws, but also convincing local judges, prosecutors and other law enforcement workers to buy in.
For instance, in 2009 lawmakers backed an ambitious, federally funded drug court program that sought to divert 4,000 otherwise prison-bound offenders to alternative programs. It would have saved a projected $95 million.
But a recent state report showed only 324 offenders were diverted and TaxWatch said the program could be improved by broadening the types of prisoners who could be eligible and giving judges more discretion for assigning offenders to the program.
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