Newest state prison could open in July after all
The Correctional Alternative Placement Program, Idaho's newest state prison, could open July 1 rather than be delayed until September, under a plan being worked out by the Otter Administration, state Corrections Director Brent Reinke and the co-chairs of the Legislature's joint budget committee, the Associated Press reports. Though the budget that JFAC set for the state's prison system was based on the delay, Reinke is working on a plan he hopes will cost the same amount but allow the earlier opening, taking advantage of budget flexibility that JFAC wrote into his appropriation. The idea: Prisoners who go through the CAPP, receiving short- and medium-term but intensive drug and alcohol treatment, will be released sooner than those housed in regular state prisons, saving money overall. Click below to read the full report from AP reporter John Miller.
Idaho drug prison to open in July
By JOHN MILLER, Associated Press Writer
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho lawmakers and Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter now aim to staff a new $50 million, 432-bed drug treatment prison starting July 1, despite budget woes that had threatened to push the opening back to September.
Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke met separately with Otter aides, as well as Rep. Maxine Bell and Sen. Dean Cameron, on Friday. Bell, R-Jerome, and Cameron, R-Rupert, head the Joint Finance-Appropriations budget writing committee.
They agreed Reinke should open the Correctional Alternative Placement Prison, or CAPP, at the start of fiscal year 2011, rather than Sept. 15.
David Hensley, Otter's staff attorney, told The Associated Press on Monday that Reinke will try to take advantage of a flexible budget to open the prison now, in hopes of realizing savings later in the year as more inmates are released following treatment — rather than winding up in the state's other, more-expensive medium- and minimum-security prisons.
"There's a lot of hope riding on CAPP," Hensley said. "The sooner you can start getting prisoners moving through that facility, the sooner you can start recognizing those savings."
Earlier this month, when legislative budget writers set nearly $169 million budget for Reinke's agency, they said the drug treatment prison would likely be delayed because of a shortage of funds.
The facility had originally slated to open in May and was then pushed back until mid-June, before the announcement on March 5 that it might not open its doors to offenders for another four months.
Reinke says he needs those treatment beds provided by the Correctional Alternative Placement Prison to accommodate more than 800 drug- and alcohol-addicted inmates who are now being held in county jails across Idaho awaiting entry into one of the state's prison treatment programs.
He expects to find enough money to run the facility, about $1.5 million, by managing his cash flow and finding savings across the prison system.
Management & Training Corp., a Centerville, Utah-based prison management company, built and will operate the prison, with Idaho making payments over 20 years as part of a lease-purchase contract. Reinke and Hensley both acknowledged the prison agency may be back in front of the 2011 Legislature in January to ask for extra cash to cover at least a portion of the new treatment prison's operational costs through July 1, 2011.
"It's possible," Reinke said. "We're on a razor's edge. But the reality is, we don't control the front door or the back door."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
