Senate Won’t Shift Jail Funds To Schools ‘If We Pass Laws To Put Them Away, We Have To Pay To Keep Them There’

A bipartisan majority in the state Senate on Thursday quelled yet another rebellion against skyrocketing prison costs that siphon cash from public and higher education.

On a 28-6 vote, the Senate refused to authorize shifting 2.5 percent of the Correction Department’s 1998 budget - about $1.7 million - to public school support, if overall state finances are still on their currently projected track next September.

“It’s time for the state to have a face-off between education and incarceration,” Republican Sen. John Andreason of Boise declared.

Republican Floor Leader James Risch of Boise acknowledged the “frustration that all of us feel with the escalating cost of incarcerating our inmates. It is a budget, however, that the people of this state demand.”

While state aid to public schools still claims nearly half of all general tax expenditures, its share of that budget has dropped over the past decade from more than 52 percent to less than 49 percent. At the same time, the share for prisons rose from 2.6 percent to over 4 percent.

And in the pared-down, $1.4 billion 1998 general tax budget, $69 million is earmarked for the Correction Department, up 13.4 percent from the $60.8 million originally authorized in the current budget.

Public school aid was put at $705 million, up 2.2 percent from the $689.5 million originally allocated this year.

“It’s a sign of the times that we must do this,” Senate Finance Chairman Atwell Parry of Melba said. “If we pass laws to put them away, we have to pay to keep them there.”

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the prison budget with only a smattering of protest votes. Action on the public school aid package was expected later in the day.