July 27, 2009
Special to the Bee: A Letter from Chuck Alexander
While Sacramento police and firefighters are receiving accolades from local officials for making contract concessions during tough times, our governor has summarily rejected any and all attempts by California correctional peace officers to do the same.
With California now reduced to passing out IOUs to cover its growing debts and its credit rating in free fall, the governor's refusal to even consider, let alone enact, any of these cost-saving proposals is puzzling.
We recently offered to reduce future pension obligations, alter sick leave provisions and make other contractual changes that would save California taxpayers more than a billion dollars annually, all of which were flatly rejected by the Schwarzenegger administration.
Shortly before, we urged the governor to trim the prison bureaucracy, which has nearly doubled at a time when the state's prison population has increased 8 percent. Even the governor's former acting corrections director said the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation "is bloated and unwieldy, generating significant waste." The governor's response was to begin furloughing officers, essentially cutting the muscle instead of the fat.
It's not the first time this governor has turned a deaf ear to our recommendations for reducing the high cost of operating California prisons. Two years ago, we detailed ways the state could save hundreds of millions of dollars by trimming the prison bureaucracy and streamlining operations. Two months ago, we offered other suggestions for cutting prison costs, including limiting inmate health care costs to the same level as Medi-Cal patients, which would ensure adequate care for inmates while saving taxpayers over a billion dollars annually. In neither case would the governor nor his prison officials meet to discuss these ideas...
