Build-a-prison budget step sought

Beebe backs board’s move to fund $5.1 million engineering phase

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL --1/23/14-- Gary Davenport of Wood Painting in North Little Rock hangs a mural Thursday afternoon at the new Arcade Building in the River Market. The mural, designed by Tom Clifton, Interim Chair for the UALR Department of Art and researched by Archivist Shannon Lausch from the UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture, presents the history of the Arcade Building.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STATON BREIDENTHAL --1/23/14-- Gary Davenport of Wood Painting in North Little Rock hangs a mural Thursday afternoon at the new Arcade Building in the River Market. The mural, designed by Tom Clifton, Interim Chair for the UALR Department of Art and researched by Archivist Shannon Lausch from the UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture, presents the history of the Arcade Building.

NEWPORT - With Gov. Mike Beebe’s blessing, the Arkansas Board of Corrections intends to ask the Legislature for something not included in the governor’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget changes - preliminary work a new prison.

“The timing might be bad to ask now, but we don’thave much choice but to ask,” Chairman Benny Magness said, explaining that in 2013, a burgeoning prison population finally overshot the system’s capacity.

It takes several years to build a new unit, Magness said, which is why he and other board members will ask lawmakers during the fiscal session in February for $5.1 million to immediately fundan engineering and architectural planning phase.

He estimated a new prison’s price tag to be around $85 million. The lockup would house 1,000 inmates.

“We all wanted to avoid this day,” Magness said. “But we grew 215 new inmates per month in 2013.”

The board’s request comes at a dicey time, given lawmakers’ debate over whetherto reauthorize federal funding for the private option. The private option stems from the 2013 Legislature’s decision to use federal Medicaid dollars to buy private health insurance through a health-insurance exchange for poor Arkansans.

If it isn’t reauthorized, the governor has said the state will face an $89 millionshortfall.

Such a shortfall, Magness noted, would result in steep cuts at many agencies, including the Department of Correction.

“We as a board understand that this might be bad timing because of the private option,” Magness said Thursday at the board’s regular meeting. “But we can’t wait much longer. At some point, Arkansas is going to have to have [a new prison].

Beebe has proposed a $7 million increase for county-jail reimbursement to $16.4 million and a $3.1 million increase for the state Department of Correction to $316.1 million, including funds to add 300 more prison beds. This would come from a reallocation of $50 million in rainy-day funds.

In fiscal 2014, he’s also proposed giving $18 million of the state’s $126 million surplus to the Department of Correction, including $10 million to pay its employees for banked holidays that they’ve already worked, $719,873 to open up 200 more prison beds and $7.4 million for county-jail reimbursements. He also proposed giving surplus funds totaling $500,000 to the Department of Community Correction for county-jail reimbursement.

But the Department of Correction stands to lose the money for additional prison beds - and everything else recommended in Beebe’s proposed budget - if the private option fails to make it through the Legislature unscathed, Magness warned.

In what board members described as another unusual move, they voted Thursday to support the private option - not because of what it does but because they fear drastic budget cuts if it isn’t reauthorized.

Not all members were comfortable with taking a position. Janis Walmsley abstained from voting after saying she felt it wasn’t the board’s place to take a stance on the private option.

Beebe’s proposed budget would fund the additional staffing needed to open 374 beds at various units around the state. The Department of Correction is also converting the old Diagnostic Unit - which once housed new inmates and a hospital - into a facility for prisoners about to be released on parole. Officials say they hope to one day house 440 such inmates there. And a renovation of the old training academy may result in 100 more beds.

Even so, a new prison unit is an inevitable necessity and the process for creating one must begin now, board members agreed.

“The money is the hardest thing about this,” Magness said. “We have tried to begood stewards of our money. But we’re there now. The time is now. These counties are hurting.”

As of Thursday, 2,722 state inmates remain backlogged in county jails throughout the state because of the shortage of prison beds.

“ADC plays a major role in public safety,” said Ray Hobbs, director of the Department of Correction. “County jails were not meant to house violent inmates and long-term inmates.”

There are several reasons for the surge in the state’s prison population.

Hobbs points to those currently entering the prison system - young, violent men with lengthy sentences. They will take up bed space for decades.

Also, significant changes at the Department of Community Correction have resulted in an increasing number of parolees being returned to prison after violating the conditions of their release.

The board approved two measures Thursday that may alleviate some of the backlog in jails and prison overcrowding caused by parole violators.

One action suspended the Technical Violator Program at the Southwest Center, which in the past allowed those who qualified to spend 60 days at the center instead of having their parole revoked and returning to prison. Recent changes, however, have made it more difficult for parolees to qualify for the program, and, as a result, the population has dropped.

In a memorandum to the board, Jerry Bradshaw, the deputy director of residential services for the Department of Community Correction wrote: “By suspending the Technical Violator Program at the Southwest Center, we free up 75 beds for general population residents from parole revocations to ACC and court-ordered placements.

“We have identified 76 offenders in county jail backup that waived their parole revocation hearing to ADC or were revoked to ADC that meet the entrance criteria for placement in a Community Correction Center.”

The board also agreed to a proposal to reconsider how the Department of Community Correction handles parolees who, despite being eligible for an assignment to a center, refuse to sign a form in which they agree to go to one. Those who don’t sign the form instead remain in county jails or return to prison.

But board members agreed that both the Department of Community Correction and the Department of Correction have the authority to send such parolees to Community Correction centers - with or without signed consent forms. Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 01/24/2014

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