May 14, 2010
The Governor’s May Budget Revision
As you know, the Governor released his May Revision to the budget this afternoon. As in January, the proposal needs to solve an approximately $20 billion deficit. As expected the Governor proposes to solve most of the problem through cuts.
The major action in the corrections budget is to transfer certain “non-serious, nonviolent and non-sex offenders” to local government. Under his proposal, approximately 15,000 inmates would be kept in the counties (forcing a line number of jail inmates to the streets). He would provide the counties with half of the state savings resulting from the transfers. This proposal is a new version of his January proposal to make certain crimes misdemeanors only. The major difference is that under the new plan he is providing locals with money—an element that was not included in the January proposal. Nevertheless, the impact on public safety will be similar—15,000 jail inmates will be forced to be released to make room in the jails for the state inmates.
The Governor is also proposing to eliminate parole for DJJ offenders and transfer that function to the counties along with $15,000 per parolee per year. He also backs off his January proposal to reduce the DJJ population by limiting the age of jurisdiction to 21.
In the area of employee compensation, the Governor is now proposing to add a one-day-per-month PLP program to the cuts he proposed in January. As you may recall, he then proposed to cut pay by 5%, have employees pay 5% more for retirement and cut the number of employees by 5%. The bottom line is that employees would be 5% worse off than under his January proposal.
In a proposal with no direct implications for the next budget, the Governor has requested that the Legislature lift the June 30, 2011 on the out-of-state contract beds to allegedly allow for the management of anticipated population declines to "achieve maximum savings and effency". He has indicated he will explore closing entire housing units and yards as a part of this process. As you know, both the CDCR and the Legislative Analyst has testified that the expansion of contract beds is more expensive than continuing to house such inmates in-state. In addition, the out-of-state beds use California taxpayer dollars to increase employment in other states, primarily Arizona.
Craig Brown - CCPOA Legislative Affairs
