The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

A conference committee of key members from both chambers could meet as early as today to try to hammer out the size of an income tax increase.

Time is running short for legislators and Gov. Jennifer Granholm to reach a budget deal to avoid a partial governmental shutdown Oct. 1.

Senate Republicans also used their majority strength Sunday to pass $950 million in spending cuts from state government and public schools. The House didn't act on the spending cuts, but Democrats made clear they wouldn't accept the depth of the cutbacks.

Still, House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, said progress was made and the House would agree to several hundred million in cuts.

Conference committee negotiators discussing an income tax increase will have this background: The Senate GOP had considered raising the 3.9% tax rate to 4.3%, and the House Democrats have tried several times to pass a 4.6% rate. The Senate fired the first volley Sunday: Two bills which would eliminate all but $560 million of a $1.75-billion deficit with spending cuts were assailed by Democrats as cruel gamesmanship which, if enacted, would harm the state's most vulnerable people.

More than 2,000 state employees would be laid off, Democrats said. School funding would be frozen, three prisons would close, social services would be slashed and State Police patrols would be drastically cut on secondary roads.

While it was likely the Democratic-controlled House will reject the depth of the spending cuts, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, said the plan was a sincere effort to cut the size of government. He also said Democrats have offered no alternative other than the tax increase.

Bishop said the cuts were difficult to vote for, adding, "We took a gigantic leap forward, we led with what we believe in."

Bishop said it's up to the House to decide on an income tax increase, or have the tax question sent to a conference committee. It was unclear whether the House, which has tried and come up short on the needed votes many times over the past 10 days, would take up the income tax question early today. Democrats said the GOP cuts go too far and that the plan was a political gambit by Republicans.

"These bills move us no closer to resolution," said Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek.

Sen. Martha Scott, D-Highland Park, condemned the social services cuts. "Let's have a conscience on Sunday, on God's day," she said. "Are we going to do this to the people?"

The Senate passed two bills to cut the deficit. The first had $587 million in cuts to the state general fund and was approved on a near party-line vote, 20-18, with only Republican Valde Garcia of Howell breaking party ranks. A second bill to erase an estimated $364 million deficit for school aid passed on a straight party line vote, 21-17. Total state funding for schools would be $12.8 billion.

Of the total proposed reductions, $290 million would come from withholding a planned 2.5% increase in funding to public schools.

The 2007-08 fiscal year begins next Monday. A temporary budget extension would be possible, but Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said she would not sign a continuation budget without a significant tax increase.

The state House did take votes on more than a dozen bills that did everything from extend certain fees past their expiration dates later this year to shifting revenues from dedicated funds, such as the transportation fund to the general fund. There was no debate on any of the bills, most of which passed easily.

In a sign that a deal might be imminent, House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, who has previously said Republicans would hold fast against a tax increase, told reporters he was prepared to allow his members to vote their conscience when an income tax vote comes up on the floor.

Last week, several Republican members held off voting early Friday morning, waiting to see if more Democrats would vote for the tax hike.

"It's time for members of both caucuses to vote how they feel they should vote," he said.

Senate Republicans tied the shell income tax increase sent to the House to 18 long-term spending reforms, many affecting the health insurance and pension benefits of public employee and teachers unions.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070924/NEWS06/709240325/10
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Contact CHRIS CHRISTOFF at 313-222-6609 or cchristoff@freepress.com.

Free Press
Detroit, MI

Editorial

JEFF GERRITT
Close state prisons the right way
September 25, 2007

A lot of wacko ideas have come out of the state budget mess, but Senate Republicans finally hit on one with promise. They've proposed closing three prisons as part of $950 million in spending cuts.

I say promise, because Michigan, with its crazy incarceration rates, must close prisons, but only if it also reduces its super-sized prison population. The State Parole Board and governor's office can do that, without legislative approval, through paroles and commutations. It's a power they need to use, selectively, safely, to help right-size the penal system.

Republicans don't want that, but they can't control who gets paroles and commutations. They plan to save an estimated $111 million in Corrections costs, without lowering the number of inmates, by reopening the Michigan Reformatory in Ionia and jamming -- my word, not theirs -- the rest of the inmates into other institutions.

Problem is, Michigan's 42 prisons, holding 50,000 people, are already jammed. Thousands of minimum-security inmates live in eight-man pole barns built for five. The rest are double-bunked. Education and other programs aimed at giving inmates a shot at success are in short supply, with long waiting lists, despite requirements that inmates take them before getting paroled.

Shutting down three prisons by simply moving the 3,000 inmates in them to other institutions would lengthen those waiting lists and jeopardize the health and safety of inmates and employees. State prisons would turn into dangerous warehouses that spit out parolees unprepared for anything but a life of more crime.

But with little sweat, Michigan could safely parole another 3,000 inmates and do what Republicans have suggested: Close Southern Michigan Correctional Facility and Charles Egeler Reception Center in Jackson, as well as the Riverside Correctional Facility in Ionia. Nearly one-third of the state's inmates, or roughly 15,000, have already served their minimum sentences and are eligible for parole. Thousands of others are chronically ill or dying. Even with 3,000 fewer inmates in three fewer prisons Michigan would still own one of the nation's highest incarceration rates -- and the highest in the Midwest. If the state had lock-up rates similar to nearby states, it would save $400 million a year. Closing three prisons by reducing the inmate population would save about $100 million a year -- a good start. The state would invest some of the money saved into prisoner re-entry programs. Republicans, exploiting people's worst fears, have opposed modest efforts by the Department of Corrections to reduce the state's prison population, which now costs nearly $2 billion a year, almost 20% of the state's general purpose money. They have fought reforms in sentencing guidelines and paroles for nonviolent offenders.

Still, facing a budget crisis, Republicans have put prison closings on the state's to-do list more forcefully than have Democrats. Now it's time to do it -- the right way.

JEFF GERRITT is a Free Press editorial writer. Contact him at gerritt@freepress.com or 313-222-6585.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070925/NEWS06/70925026

Closing of Jackson prison one step closer
September 25, 2007
By DAVID EGGERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LANSING ‹ The state¹s plan to close a 1,400-bed prison in Jackson took a big step closer to reality after a federal appeals court declined Monday to rule whether a proposal to move prisoners elsewhere is adequate.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati instead voted 3-0 to send various issues concerning the future of the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility back to U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Grand Rapids. Jonker earlier this month had approved a state Department of Corrections plan to transfer 700 remaining sick inmates to other facilities and effectively close the prison, pending appeal.

Monday¹s ruling means Jonker¹s order likely will take effect, allowing the prison to shut down within 45 days. Inmates¹ lawyers may appeal again, however.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm¹s administration wants to close the Jackson prison to save $35 million as part of the state¹s effort to balance its budget.

Inmates¹ lawyers who sued to block the prison¹s closure have said the state wants it closed to escape long-standing and costly federal oversight of the health care system at the Jackson prison complex.

³I can assure you we are going to raise every possible issue that will protect the health and safety of these prisoners,² said Patricia Streeter, an attorney for the inmates.

Jonker recently took over the class-action case after U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen in Kalamazoo asked that it be transferred. While Enslen had blocked the plan to close the prison and ordered the department to revise it, citing concerns over moving sick prisoners, Jonker said the transfer proposal was OK.

The Corrections Department has been under a federal consent decree in the case, known as Hadix, since 1985 to improve medical care and other conditions at the state prisons in Jackson.

The case has struck a nerve as lawmakers and Granholm continue grappling with major budget problems, including how to slow spending in the prison system that costs $2 billion a year to run.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070925/OPINION01/709250336
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