Building Council Endorses Projects
The Permanent Building Fund Advisory Council has endorsed the construction priorities of the Public Works Division, acknowledging there is only enough money to finance a fraction of the projects in the coming year.
The priority list adopted Tuesday only partially accommodates the Correction Department’s extensive list of projects to ease prison overcrowding.
“It’s spooky what I’m seeing as far as the money required for the Department of Correction,” council Chairman Jerry Wray said, shaking his head at the admission of Correction Director James Spalding that there appears to be no stopping the skyrocketing inmate population.
The only alternative, Spalding said in what is becoming a routine presentation for him, is to relent on the increasingly tough sentencing requirements for non-violent offenders, who make up about 55 percent of the current inmate population.
“But that’s not an easy thing when you’re talking to the populace out there about cutting back on our incarceration rate,” Spalding told the council.
Without sentencing changes, he estimates, prison capacity will have to double to more than 6,000 over the next eight years.
The council recommendations, which will be submitted to lawmakers this winter for consideration in the 1996-1997 budget, include $40.6 million in projects for which there is only about $6 million available unless the Legislature comes up with cash from other sources - an unlikely event in what is expected to be a tight budget year.
The top recommendation is covering a $260,000 cost overrun on the 36-bed expansion of the women’s prison in Pocatello.
That is followed by $1 million in planning money for the $12.3 million University of Idaho biotechnology centerwhich would be financed partially with federal money. The $1 million in state cash is intended to solidify the federal contribution through a show of good faith.
Another $200,000 is earmarked for overall facility planning for the State School and Hospital in Nampa and for Boise State University.
Spalding’s $623,000 request to expand food service facilities at the minimum-security prison came in fifth. That project is needed to accommodate double bunking to squeeze more inmates into available cell space.
The sixth priority is $13 million for an engineering building at Boise State University.
At that point, Public Works Director Larry Osgood noted that available cash was gone.
The list contains another 19 projects for which another $25 million is needed. At the bottom is $7.6 million to begin planning the $76 million 1,000-bed medium-security prison which Spalding says needs to be opened by 2001.