Pubdate: Mon, 22 Aug 2011
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Copyright: 2011 St. Petersburg Times
Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/
Website: http://www.tampabay.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419

RECKLESSNESS ENDS UP COSTING MONEY, NOT SAVING IT

There is a natural tendency among politicians new to Tallahassee to 
assume that when they encounter resistance to change it is because of 
inertia rather than informed experience. The latest debacle involves 
the bold and quick decision by the Republican-led Legislature to 
privatize 30 state prison facilities in 18 South Florida counties. A 
minor detail not discussed at the time: up to $25 million in public 
money to provide severance pay to more than 4,000 Department of 
Corrections workers.

Corrections staffers say they told the legislative staff about the 
expense, but it was never discussed openly nor addressed in this 
year's state budget. Now it appears the agency will need to find the 
money - a prospect the corrections secretary warned "may just cripple 
the agency" - or seek special dispensation from the Joint Legislative 
Budget Commission.

The state's rush to privatize more prisons already had looked rash. 
While state law requires private prisons to cost 7 percent less, it's 
never clear whether those cost savings actually materialize. The 
Legislature's research agency, the Office of Program Policy Analysis 
and Governmental Accountability, has acknowledged as much. The office 
noted that while private prisons may cost less, they house far fewer 
inmates with special medical needs, which drives their costs below 
public-run facilities.

A surer way to cut costs would be to revisit the state's mandatory 
minimum sentencing for low-risk offenders and invest in prison 
programs to reduce recidivism - ideas Corrections Secretary Ed Buss 
supports but ones that have received short shrift from Gov. Rick Scott 
and Republican lawmakers.

Instead, the Republican leadership in Tallahassee has chosen to hand 
off a major function of public safety to a politically active, 
for-profit enterprise without fully vetting the details in public. The 
same recklessness isn't limited to lawmakers. Earlier this year the 
Department of Environmental Protection, backed by Scott, rushed a 
proposal to put campgrounds in 56 state parks before determining 
whether the sites were even suitable.

Public policy isn't easily conveyed in a campaign sound bite. But too 
often in modern Tallahassee, it's such rhetoric - not sound policy 
analysis - that dictates the state's direction. Taxpayers deserve 
better, and the $25 million they may end up giving to laid-off 
corrections workers for a new private prison system that may not save 
money is just one more piece of evidence.
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.