The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/NEWSV5/storyV5STATEBUD05W.htm

By John Davis
Montgomery Advertiser

The newly signed state budget to pay for health care, prisons, courts and other government services contains enough money to give almost every Alabamian $344.

To put it another way, the $1.55 billion in the General Fund budget for next year is enough dollar bills to build a 37-foot-high wall of cash from the Capitol on Dexter Avenue to the governor's mansion on South Perry Street, a distance of almost one and a half miles.

That much money is a vague concept to most people, according to local financial planner Van Sievers.

"Once you talk about over a million, people don't have any concept," said Sievers, the general partner for Financial Solutions Group in Montgomery.

Twenty percent of the money, $305 million, will go to pay for the state's prison system at a cost of about $10,991 per inmate.

Only one item in the General Fund is larger: the $429 million in spending for Medicaid, the state-federal health-care safety net for poor people.

Unlike prisons, the federal government outspends states for Medicaid, meaning that the General Fund's $429 million will help buy the state a $4 billion program.

For many people, these large numbers don't mean much unless they see money coming out of their own pocketbooks. According to John M. Cluck, a semi-retired financial planner in Montgomery, people pay attention to government spending "only as it affects them through taxes."

No one in the Alabama Legislature or Gov. Bob Riley's office is pushing for more taxes, even though many are quick to point out how difficult it is to pay for the state's General Fund needs with the money on hand.

It was so difficult this year that the Legislature had to convene twice to come up with a budget, finishing the task with only two months left in the current budget year.

"We are grateful to the administration and the Legislature for working together on a budget that will allow the agency to continue to provide services and eligibility at their existing levels," said Medicaid spokeswoman Mary Finch, of the program that offers health care to one in five Alabamians.

Riley signed the budget Thursday, ensuring funding for the state's court system, police and the Choccolocco Creek Watershed, which is getting $18,397, or enough stacked dollar bills to match the height of a tall man.