The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Werner calculates the unnecessary costs to total an additional $2 billion in interest payments and the total cost to taxpayers of borrowing $7.4 billion is at least $12 billion and opines that an entity that chooses lease-revenue financing must be motivated primarily by concerns other than economic efficiency. Dr. Werner writes, "One possibility is that lease revenue bonds are used to finance prisons because state officials believe that voters would reject the use of general obligation bonds for the projects in question."

The landmark lawsuit filed today against a number of state officials, including the Governor, the State Treasurer and the Chairman of the Department of Finance, argues that AB 900 constitutes an illegal bypass of voters' constitutional right to vote on debt (California Constitution Article XVI, section 1) and an illegal waste of scarce government resources (Code of Civil Procedure section 526a).

"In the midst of a wrenching budget crisis, California is borrowing billions of dollars to build 53,000 new prison and jail beds," commented Lead Counsel in the CURB lawsuit, Thomas Nolan. "How can we be kicking thousands of kids off of Medical and cutting the public school budget by billions, yet sink $12 billion into building tens of thousands of new prisons beds?"

Dubbed by the New York Times as the largest prison construction plan in U.S. history, AB 900 was passed last year with no public hearing, no public debate, and with public opinion squarely against new prison construction. Dorsey Nunn, a plaintiff in the suit and a member of All of Us or None, explains that "AB 900 is in direct violation of the California Constitution, which demands that only the will of the voters can put the General Fund into this kind of debt."

"It speaks so sadly of our future that my teachers are receiving lay off warning notices at the same time 53,000 new prison beds are being funded," said Ericka Sokolower-Shain, one of the plaintiffs who is a public school student. Additional plaintiffs are Camilla Chavez of Bakersfield's Dolores Huerta Foundation, Bonnie Long, who has a family member in prison, and Cynthia Chandler, parent of public school students.

"California has opened 23 new prisons in the past 23 years, and our system is more crowded than ever," explains CURB member Craig Gilmore. "By building more prisons, we're making the overcrowding problem even worse. The real solutions to overcrowding are early release, parole reform, sentencing reform and full implementation of Proposition 36." Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, Senator Gloria Romero, has repeatedly stated that "we cannot build ourselves out of the prison crisis."

In a March letter to the State Public Works Board, Chair of the Democratic Caucus Carole Migden, who will appear at the press conference, wrote, "Due to the State's current financial crisis, I do not think it is fiscally prudent to authorize the sale of lease revenue bonds which will increase the state's current structural deficit." The ongoing costs of AB900 will likely devastate the state budget for years to come.

The complaint, expert report, summaries and additional background materials will be available at http://www.curbprisonspending.org for download after the press conference May 6, 2008 noon.

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Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a broad based statewide coalition of community organizations across the state committed to curbing prison spending by reducing the number of people in prison and closing prisons.