June 28, 2011 | 2:28 PM | By

How the new budget deals with prison overcrowding

FILED UNDER: Corrections, Budget, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Realignment

Andrew Magill.

A rainy day in California brings solemn news from Governor Jerry Brown’s office: budget compromise. Brown is walking away from his stalled plan to put tax extensions to the voters in a special election this fall. Instead, Brown will, with the legislature’s Democrats, put forth a budget that assumes the state will take in $4 billion more than it did last year (which is possible). If the state doesn’t take in enough revenue, massive cuts would go into effect, including a possible $20 million cut to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

As for the Governor’s plan to “realign” the prison system to reduce overcrowding and save the state money? KQED’s John Meyers explains the new plan well:

The other large compromise in the new unified Democratic budget is on realignment, the governor’s year-long attempt to transfer programs to the local level (mostly counties), along with money to fund them. That’s where the bulk of his tax extensions — sales and vehicle taxes — would have gone. But without GOP support, Brown had to either cancel the reform proposal or find another way; he chose the latter. The proposal now calls for fully transferring those programs, but using existing revenues — a complicated local/state sales tax change and a portion of existing vehicle license fees — to fund it. That appears to be designed as a temporary fix, with Brown’s advisers saying the constitutional changes (and revenues) are now targeted for the November 2012 ballot.

That 2012 constitutional change would potentially guarantee money to counties to help house their new population of prisoners in years to come. Counties are likely to be a bit skittish about this new budget deal–because the 30,000 or so prison inmates, per AB 109, are still slated to come home. The funds to house them, however, seem to be becoming less certain.

  • Salvaggiooo

    CUT INMATE SPENDING !!!!  THOSE POS GET EVERYTHING !!!!!

  • Isrod2009

     Their “spending”  does not have anything to do with the state or your tax dollars.  Their famililies are buying them food and hygene out of their own pockets

  • LTRAIDERNATION

    STOP ALL THE PRIME HEALTHCARE THESE CONVICTED CRIMINALS GET, SUCH AS HORMONE MEDS SO THE WANNA BE WOMAN/MEN INMATES CAN HAVE BREAST. YES, YOU READ IT RIGHT! DID WE AS A SOCIETY FORGET THE VICTIMS OF THE CRIMES THESE THUGS HAVE COMMITTED. INNOCENT CHILDREN AND ADULTS WHO ARE SCARRED FOR LIFE. WHILE THIS STATE SPENDS THOUSANDS FOR EACH AND EVERY INMATE INCARCERATED, HOUSING, 2 HOT MEALS AND 1 COLD LUNCH ETC ETC. ANYONE CAN TOUR ANY OF ARE 33 PRISONS IN THIS STATE. IF YOU WANT TO SEE WERE ARE HARD EARNED DOLLARS ARE SPENT VISIT YOUR NEAR BY STATE PEN INN. THE LIGHT ARE ALWAYS ON…………………………………………………..   

  • Bill

    You really are an idiot!

  • LTRAIDERNATION

    SOUNDS TO ME LIKE YOU NEVER HAVE VISITED A PRISON DINING HALL, TRY IT SOMEDAY………………

  • Jdm44yo

    After working 21 years in the system NO the families are not buying them hygene food  most are buying drugs and bringing them in.

  • Knightrang

    $20 million!  OH my.  There goes ice cream on Thanksgiving.

  • Homer Simpson

    Only short bus ridin’ morons post in all caps.

  • BeenThereDoneThat

    I have worked in the prison for several years…Yes their families purchase stuff for the inmates, however, the inmates are given 2 hot, very abundant meals and a cold lunch that has 4 pieces of bread, 2-4 pieces of lunch meat, mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise as well as either a sweet bread or a package of chips….my child gets less of a lunch and I have to pay for it through the school.  Inmates also get many medical benefits that I, as a taxpayer, do not qualify for.  If I find a lump in my breast it takes me months before the insurance will allow a scan to be done….there is a scanner at the prison once every week and an inmate only has to wait the one week.  How about freedom of religion, my kid cannot pray in school but inmates get various religious ceremonies including Wicca, Sweat Boxes (Native American), Jewish or Muslin ceremonies, but again I can’t express my sense of religion.  The pastoral representation of each of these religions gets paid well to do a few hours of work each week at the prison.  If anybody is an idiot it is all of us tax paying citizens who are not speaking up about where our tax dollars go.  Prison should be a place people don’t want to return to, not one where they go to for winter to keep warm or get their medical issues taken care of!

  • Jenraydom

    woo woo I agree…Dirtbags get everything. Be back @ the clubhouse soon

  • gotcha8

    Isrod2009  is right!  Jdm44yo is full of BS!

  • Godahal

    Actually this is incorrect.  You’re thinking of Mexico.  This isn’t Mexico kiddo.  I personally hand out to these gangbangers, rapist, child molesters and murders their meals and hygiene products on a  daily basis.   All state bought.   As in our tax dollars (yours included) are used for this.  Literally every day I’m am handing out 3 meals (that their family’s had nothing to with) and their tooth paste, tooth brushes, combs, baby powder, yes, baby powder, deodorant, the little plastic floss/pick things.  Everything that you could ever need.  Also paper, pens and envelopes with postage pre-stamped on there so that they don’t even have to pay postage to mail out a letter to their dirt bag homies.  And don’t even get me started on the gold plated health care they receive.  Don’t believe what you hear in the news.  I’m on the front line and see what these scum-bags get for health care and its better than you can imagine.  Its absolutely ridiculous.  Oh and again, all of this is provided with or without the their families.  So the next time you open your mouth make sure you know what the fuck you’re talking about.  

  • Hopahale7

    You are a typical prison staffer. We, the familalies, know what really takes place in there. And by the way…. We are the tax payers that do pay for all the expense, your over paid salary and benefits included. So…take your own advise and make sure you know what the F### you’re talking about.

  • HisLady

    My loved one is incarcerated and for all you nitwits that think CA prisons are a heavenly place to live, try talking to the loved ones on the outside!  My loved one won’t eat the “wonderful” meals they serve in prison, why, because he saw a rat in the kitchen more than once! So, I send money so he can purchase over-priced noodles, tuna, potatoe chips, etc and make himself a prison spread as its called, not very nutritious but certainly better than eatting in a kitchen where rats roam. Go on Prison Talk and look in the drop down menu of those who died in prison, many on the outside have posts of losing loved ones from inadequate medical care in our prison system, preventable deaths, while they wait many months to see a doctor. Prison healthcare sucks at best. 

    Do your research, we need reform of our 2nd & 3rd strike law, reform of what’s TRUELY considered a “violent” or “serious” felony because as it stands every damn thing in the law book is being added to “serious” or “violent” status, check out the bills that we don’t get to vote on. Get in a fight, break a nose, thats assault with ”great bodily injury” and now you got your 1st strike and are subject to overzealous  prosecutors elevating a misdemeanor to a felony and giving you double time for writing that bad check you thought you’d have covered before it bounced. Don’t have 2 strikes already because that check is going to cost you life in prison!

    Us families of inmates are tax payers too and I certainly think this absurb sentencing guideline for any non-violent felony after a 1st strike are a HUGE waste of my tax payer dollars!!!!