Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Details about the state budget approved on Tuesday are leaking out, and it is does not look good for those who care about the outsized influence of lobbyists for private prisons in our legislature.
The one person who is happy is Arizona's "shadow governor" Chuck Coughlin and his HighGround lobbying firm that ran Jan Brewer's campaign and currently runs the governor's office. He also represents the private prison companies who want more private prisons. Surprise, they got what they wanted in spades.
Howard Fischer reports, Legislature gives preliminary approval to $8.6 billion state budget – East Valley Tribune:
The spending plan includes $50 million for a new maximum security prison, a priority of Gov. Jan Brewer. [and shadow governor Chuck Coughlin]
[The budget directs $20 million next year toward the construction of 500 state-run, maximum-security beds, with an additional $30 million to follow the next year.
The budget also authorizes a $16 million private-prison contract for 1,000 prison beds, although no expenditure would happen until fiscal 2015. – h/t Arizona Republic]
“In a year with a surplus, we’ve decided to make funding prisons a higher priority than funding health care for kids who, by no choice of their own, do not have access to health insurance,” Schapira said.
And Brewer, who negotiated the spending plan with the Republican majority, said she agrees with that decision.
“You know, public safety is really important to a lot of people,” she said. “And we certainly are short on maximum (security) beds.”
And House Majority Leader Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, said while there is no net increase in the number of people being sent to prison, the number of inmates who need to be in maximum security facilities continues to increase.
But more than just funding is at issue.
One provision of the budget eliminates an existing requirement that the Department of Corrections do a study of the costs and benefits between public and private prisons. House Minority Leader Chad Campbell said that makes no sense, given that the one study that was conducted shows it actually costs $5 a day more to house a medium-security inmate in a private prison than one run by the state.
There are about 40,000 people in state custody.
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, a proponent of private prisons, said the study has “questionable reliability,” saying it did not consider issues like an underfunded pension system for corrections officers.
The Arizona Guardian (subscription required) adds UPDATED: Budget proposal lifts oversight of private prisons:
Less than two years after a group of inmates busted out of a private prison and went on multi-state crime spree of murder and mayhem, state lawmakers want to let for-profit prisons operate with less oversight.
The details are buried in an $8.6 billion budget proposal being debated today at the Capitol. According to the proposed spending plan, the Legislature would,"eliminate the requirement for a quality and cost review of private prison contracts."
Officials with Gov. Jan Brewer's office say Republican Rep. John Kavanagh wanted the provision to kill the review of privately run prisons. Matthew Benson, a spokesman for the governor, said the Department of Corrections will still maintain oversight of the private prisons.
But, he said, there will no longer be an annual review of the cost and the quality of the private prisons.
The GOP-led legislature has pushed for more private prisons over the past few years because, they argued, its saves taxpayer money. But the same cost studies the Legislature now wants to eliminate have shown the private prisons don't save a lot of money and in some cases are more expensive that the traditional state-run facilities. Benson added the governor believes the cost comparison and quality review is, "of little utility to us."
Yes, because inconvenient truths conflict with ALEC's privatization of prisons agenda and the bottom line of our shadow governor and his private prison clients.
Rep. Cecil Ash (R-Mesa), a proponent of prison reform, was the only Tea-Publican to vote against the budget.
In other states this would be a major scandal, but our Arizona political media treats this as just another day at the Arizona legislature. Ho-hum.