Prisons budget set, includes boost for county, out-of-state inmate placements
The budget was set for the state Department of Correction today, with JFAC voting unanimously for a series of motions that come in slightly below the governor’s recommendation, calling for a 7.6 percent increase in state funds. A working group of JFAC members including Reps. Rick Youngblood, Van Burtenshaw and Melissa Wintrow and Sen. Jeff Agenbroad crafted the budget; it sharply trimmed back replacement items the prisons requested to save money; and funded the replacement of an Offender Management System with a one-time appropriation next year of $7 million, to be the first of three, rather than funding the full amount up-front. The budget also partially funds facility expansions designed to add beds throughout the state prison system, with the rest of the funding for those to come from the Permanent Building Fund budget.
The budget includes a big boost in funding for county and out-of-state inmate placements, as Idaho’s inmate population balloons. In the fall, the state prison system projected it would have an average of 8,464 inmates a month next year, including 700 placed in county jail beds and 188 out of state. Now, those figures have risen to an average of 8,612 inmates, with 644 in county jail beds and 392 in private out-of-state beds. Idaho already has shipped out about 250 inmates to a private prison in Texas.
“We all know that the growth of the inmate population continues to increase, not only just in our current state facilities, but throughout Idaho in our county (jail) facilities,” said Youngblood, R-Nampa. “And I know that the director and his staff continue to receive phone calls from county placements to come and bring their inmates back to their facilities at the state, and it just continues to explode.”
Youngblood said he compliments state Corrections Director Henry Atencio and his staff “for managing these inmates,” including the decision to ship inmates out of state. “I know that that’s not a popular position,” he said, “but in the interim it needs to be done.”
Funding in the budget for county and out-of-state placement would nearly double to $21.2 million next year, from $11.5 million this year.
Overall, the prison budget for next year was set at $233.8 million in state general funds, $268.6 million in total funds. The budget bill still needs passage in both houses and the governor’s signature to become law, but budgets rarely change once they’re set by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.
