Jails Stretched, Official Warns

Corrections Director James Spalding warned on Monday that Idaho will either have to build $250 million in new prisons over the next six years or change the sentencing policies that have the current prison system bursting at the seams.

“The worst-case scenario is continuing to develop,” Spalding told the Permanent Building Fund Advisory Council. “We have maxed our system out.”

But as Spalding was laying out his six-year program to essentially double the capacity of Idaho’s prison system, aides to Gov. Phil Batt continued developing a plan for a special task force to look for a solution to what former Gov. Cecil Andrus called a “financial black hole.”

“The governor does think it’s a big budget problem,” Batt spokeswoman Amy Kleiner said.

The task force, likely to begin work next spring, will evaluate all possible options from raising taxes to pay for the unprecedented building program to major changes in sentencing procedures.