California prisons overspent budgets by $1.4 billion (AP Analysis)

Mercury News ^ | 1/18/04 | Bob Porterfield - AP

[NormsRevenge]

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's initial efforts to tame California's out-of-control spending are unlikely to impose fiscal control on the state's prisons, which have overspent their budgets by $1.4 billion in the past five years, according to an Associated Press analysis.

[NormsRevenge]

.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

If this were a corporation, the Board would send the CEO packing.

[robertpaulsen]

Well letsee. $5.72 billion for 161,000 prisoners.

Works out to over $35,000 per prisoner per year. Outrageous!

[evolved_rage]

I heard Texas pays about half that. I believe Texas has many private prisons too.

[American in Israel]

Heck, I would spend $100k a year to stay out of prison, (if I had it... -grin-)

Can't have it both ways, they want to spend less on prison, perhaps they should shorten prison terms, instead of Guard hours. How the heck do you "get out of control of sick leave"? Overtime is mismanagement, but cutting back sick leave is, well, "sick".

Personally I think they are sending far to many people to prison for BS things, and for far too long.

[Triple Word Score]

You get out of control on sick leave budgets when you make dishonest budgets, and you make dishonest budgets when your bosses force you to lie, right on up the chain. :shrug: The budget looks bad with sick leave taken into account? Why, slash the numbers and pretend and you can get by for another whole year before someone has to deal with it!

Corruption isn't just officials taking bribes to do their jobs. Corruption is also entrenched dishonesty in bookkeeping--and it's caused by supervisors who have subordinates lie to make things look better, all the way up to the legislative level. When nobody has honest facts to work with, nobody can make intelligent decisions.

And we can thank the ludicrous war on drugs for a lot of this, and our out-of-control borders for much of the rest. Nobody who wants to use this stuff is deterred by the threat of prison, obviously.

[international american]

"Corruption isn't just officials taking bribes to do their jobs. Corruption is also entrenched dishonesty in bookkeeping--and it's caused by supervisors who have subordinates lie to make things look better, all the way up to the legislative level. When nobody has honest facts to work with, nobody can make intelligent decisions."

Good point!

[claudiustg]

Time to release some dangerous felons into the neighborhood, so the citizens will cough up some more cash.

[robertpaulsen]

Yep. There's a quick way to save $2-3 billion in the budget.

Speaking of ways to save money, that reminds me of an old joke. At an international conference, an American warden became friends with a Russian warden and invited him to tour his prison in Illinois the next time he was in the U.S.

Well, that following January, the Russian warden shows up and they begin the tour. The American warden is showing off the gleaming white walls, the chrome railings and bars, the rec room, the law library, etc., and the Russian is just amazed.

The American say ,"Pretty impressive, huh?". The Russian replies, "You have heat!"