Beebe Choosing Between Rhetoric And Reality
Last updated Friday, December 22, 2006 6:39 PM CST in Columns
By John Brummett
The Morning News
Warning: This is one of those probably boring nuts-and-bolts state government stories.
I tell it to advance a worthy point that somewhere between what some see as government waste and others advocate as fiscal responsibility sometimes lies the real world. Rhetoric is not reality.
The story begins with the fact that it’s not easy running state prisons. It’s hard to keep guards employed because the work is not fun and the pay is nothing special.
Costs of operation steadily increase as courts breathe down prison officials’ necks to make sure they don’t mete out cruel or unusual punishment.
The Bush administration excepted, we Americans treat prisoners with decency. Or at least we do now. The history of Arkansas in that regard is not so good, but we try to keep it history.
We once staffed our prisons with trusty inmates. It was cheaper. We don’t want to go back to that even if the courts would let us, which they wouldn’t.
People talk about health care costs. They ought to try providing medical care to more than 13,000 prison inmates.
You can’t let these guys lie around sick. That’d be unconstitutional and inhumane, and you’d breed contagious situations. So, the prisons pay a lot of money for a medical contractor. They also pour millions into a risk management pool to fill in the gaps for hospitalization.
One thing the state prison system has been doing in recent years is getting legislative approval for hundreds of positions it seldom fills, mostly because of security guard turnover. Then, with statutory authority and the permission of the Department of Finance and Administration and the Legislative Council, the prisons have occasionally transferred money appropriated for those unfilled positions to general operations covering utilities, health care costs and such.
Lately they’ve used salary transfers to shore up the fast-draining risk management pool. They’ve also subsidized transitional housing in the community punishment division, which is designed, of course, to lessen the traditional prison burden, and thus the need for guards.
Prison officials say they haven’t intentionally inflated job needs to give themselves extra money elsewhere. They say they’d prefer to have all the positions filled and be in a position of having to argue to the Legislature for higher appropriations otherwise. But they say a new prison guard vacancy usually occurs about the time you fill one.
It happens that outgoing House Speaker Bill Stovall is a budget savant whose grinch-like budgeting is largely responsible for these massive state surpluses. He doesn’t like that prisons have been carrying more than 300 unfilled positions and using that money for other purposes. He also doesn’t like that the prisons then embed the money for those unfilled positions in the continuing base level for their new budget request.
He has said the Legislature ought to put the money for those 300-plus positions in a separate pool and that the prisons actually ought to get the money only as they actually fill the positions.
I’m told that Gov.-elect Mike Beebe first looked upon Stovall’s idea while still wearing his legislative hat, and pronounced it good. But then, I’m told, it hit him that he’s the executive branch now, and, as such, responsible for a prison system that might require the very flexibility Stovall would remove.
If you tie all the prisons system’s discretionary money to job positions, have you really served the prisons’ or taxpayers’ interests? Or have you merely forced the prisons to seek yet more taxpayer money to meet needs previously attended to with unspent salary funds?
Stovall’s intention is to enhance budgetary honesty, accountability and savings. The prisons’ intent is to deal as best they can with the circumstances of the real world. The governor-elect’s intent is not to have any prison crisis on his watch.
Good compromise can arise from these kinds of situations. I rather expect one here. Look for the Legislature to leave the unfilled positions and transfer authority intact, but require prison officials to jump through an additional hoop or two before shifting the money.
About this columnist
John Brummett has been writing about Arkansas and national politics for three decades and as a regular columnist since 1986. Email Brummett at jbrummett@arkansasnews.com.
Click here to read his blog.
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