LITTLE ROCK — While more than 1,500 state prison inmates take up space in county jails, hundreds of prison beds now under construction in Malvern are likely to sit empty because the state has no money to staff them, state prison officials said Monday.
Arkansas Department of Correction officials gave the grim assessment of the prospects for opening the new prison beds as the Board of Corrections unanimously approved $6.3 million in cuts to the department’s budget during a teleconference Monday.
The cuts, which include reducing maintenance and operations expenses at the state’s 20 prisons and work release centers and holding some staff positions vacant, would leave the department with a core operating budget of $290.4 million for this year - less than the department had initially expected but still 3 percent more than it received last year.
This year’s budget still includes $9 million for salary increases under a new pay plan for state employees, approved by the Legislature this year, and a $7.7 million increase in the cost of providing medical care to inmates. But the department has no money allocated to staff hundreds of beds now under construction at the Ouachita River Unit in Malvern.
The department had been crafting a plan that would tap Gov. Mike Beebe’s $40 million budget contingency fund to open 360 prison beds at the unit at a cost of about $7.5 million. But those plans were put on hold last month after the state reported that general revenue collections in September were more than 12 percent lower than expected.
On Monday, Correction Department officials said that, under the current state budget, they have no plans to open the beds.
“We’ve been saying all along that we’ll open what we can afford to open,” Correction Department spokesman Dina Tyler said. “Right now, we just can’t afford to open them.”
The cuts to the Correction Department’s budget are part of a 2.2 percent overall reduction in the state’s budget announced last month because of lower than expected tax collections. State agencies must submit their plans for cuts to the Department of Finance and Administration by today.
In Monday’s teleconference, the Board of Corrections approved measures that would reduce the budget of the Correction Department’s sister agency, the Department of Community Correction, by 4.5 percent, to $63.4 million. Those steps include freezing an additional 18 positions for probation and parole officers, reducing the number of visits the officers make to the homes of people under their supervision to cut down on fuel costs and reducing drug testing of offenders by 25 percent.
“It will be tough for a period of time, but we can make it work,” department Director David Guntharp said. “It’s like anyone else, once you get into a tight budget crunch you’ve got to make some reductions somewhere.”
Approved by the Legislature in 2005, the $59 million Special Needs Unit in Malvern is expected to eventually include 294 prison beds for new inmates waiting to be assigned to other prisons and 488 beds for inmates who are elderly, disabled or mentally ill. The unit will also include a hospital and hospice for inmates.
Work finished earlier this year on 40 beds for inmates with developmental disabilities and mental illness, but the department has no inmates assigned to them. Instead, it has been housing 100 inmates in the unit’s gym, where it has set up temporary beds.
By the end of next month, the department expects to finish work on eight barracks at the prison with a total of 320 prison beds, but those beds are likely to sit empty until at least the end of June, when the state’s fiscal year ends.
“We won’t be able to open those beds,” Tyler said. “We’ll make these cuts and hope the economy recovers some, and we won’t have to make any additional cuts.”
Another section of the prison, with 128 beds, is expected to be completed next fiscal year, in July 2010. The entire addition is expected to be finished by December 2011.
The Correction Department had hoped that the new prison beds would alleviate the backup of inmates waiting in county jails for space in state prisons to open up. County sheriffs complain that the state prisoners take up needed space and, because the state pays only $28 per day for each inmate, strain county budgets.
The backup stood at 1,584 inmates on Monday, down from a record 1,820 inmates on Aug. 28. Tyler credited the drop in part to releases under the state’s Emergency Powers Act, which allows inmates to be paroled up to a year early, and efforts by the department to use its prison space more efficiently.
The state has also started to release the first inmates under a law passed by the Legislature this year that allows inmates convicted of offenses related to the manufacture of methamphetamine to become eligible for parole after serving 50 percent of their sentences, instead of 70 percent.
That law, as well as the slowdown of the court system around Thanksgiving and Christmas, is expected to help reduce the prison population through the end of this year. But the population is expected to start creeping back up again by early next year.
At the Pulaski County jail, which is closed to most nonviolent offenders because of overcrowding, 208 of the 1,026 inmates the jail held on Monday were state prisoners, Sheriff Doc Holladay said. That’s down from a high of 325 about two months ago, Holladay said.
“I know they’re doing the best they can with what they have,” Holladay said. “I know that they’re concerned about the matter, as I have been, and recognize that something needs to be done.”
The Legislature approved $7.5 million to reimburse county jails for holding state prisoners through the end of June 2010, but that money is expected to run out by the end of next month. The department plans to ask the Legislature for more money during the budget session in February, said Sheila Sharp, the department’s assistant director for administrative services.
The new pay plan for state employees is expected to increase salaries at the Correction Department by up to about 5 percent, depending on the employee’s rank and years of service, and help decrease an annual employee turnover rate of about 27 percent, said Tyler, the department spokesman. The starting salary for corrections officers ranges from $25,000 to $34,000 depending on the unit where the officers works. Director Larry Norris’ salary increased 5 percent, to $135,590.
At the same time, the department is paying $51 million this year to Correctional Medical Services Inc. of St. Louis to provide medical care to inmates, up from $43.3 million last year. The department is expected to get $7.1 million from Beebe’s contingency fund, made up of surplus money from last year’s budget, to cover the increased cost.
Among the cost-cutting measures approved by the Board of Corrections on Monday are holding nonsecurity positions vacant, reducing spending on office supplies, clothing and linens, and delaying extra pay for employees who work during holidays.
At the request of Beebe, corrections officials said they are exploring other ways of reducing the state’s prison population, such as releasing some nonviolent inmates from county jails or reducing the number of people who are sentenced to prison for probation violations.
Beebe “has encouraged everyone to think hard because of the cost involved,” Tyler said. “There’s only a limited number of prison beds, and they need to be used for the folks who pose the biggest threat to the public.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/03/2009