Legislators Take Another Bite From Batt’s Prison Budget

Legislative budget writers on Friday slashed another $2.2 million in general tax support from Gov. Phil Batt’s proposed 1998 spending for prisons.

But even with those savings - on top of more than $700,000 saved by holding off on employee raises for a year - the Correction Department budget is 13.5 percent higher than what the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee originally allocated.

That amount, however, was increased by $3.5 million, primarily to pay for out-of-state housing for the skyrocketing inmate population.

The $69 million total matched the target leaders had set for the agency in the plan to slash about $12 million from the Republican governor’s already pared down budget.

House Appropriations chairman Bob Geddes asked lawmakers to avoid another debate over why state prison spending seems to be rising at the expense of education and other programs.

But that did not stop Republican Sen. Evan Frasure of Pocatello from casting a protest “no” vote on most pieces of the budget. Frasure was scolded for engineering $500,000 over the leadership target for higher education a day earlier.

“I got a message from leadership that I was killing that bill,” Frasure said. “And then I get scowled at for questioning computers for the prisons.

“Prisons are the new sacred cow,” he complained. “We argue over 50, 60, 100 thousand dollars for higher education and then just run through budgets like this for corrections. I just have a little problem with that.”

Conservative Sen. Stan Hawkins of Ucon renewed his call for a thorough assessment of the state’s entire criminal justice system to find a way to check future spending.

“We need to take a comprehensive look at what we’re doing with this because it’s eating up all the growth that ought to be going to other areas,” Hawkins said.

Adult and juvenile corrections were the only parts of state government to be recommended for marked increases by Batt.