Budget Cuts Loom Over Georgia Corrections
Georgia’s budget ax could cut loose crime victims who are owed restitution and thin the ranks of prison chaplains who cost the state $2.2 million a year. These possibilities arose as a committee of state Senate budget writers searched for savings in the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Department of Corrections.
Like most state departments, those agencies are under Gov. Sonny Perdue’s order to trim at least 6 percent from their budgets to help the state cope with a projected $2 billion deficit in the current year’s spending plan. Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, chairman of the committee, questioned whether the Board of Pardons and Paroles should be using taxpayer money to notify crime victims that they are entitled to restitution payments from parolees. The six positions that handle those notifications, among other services for victims, cost $257,880 … On the prison side, the Department of Corrections spends $2.2 million on 18 full-time and 31 part-time chaplains who counsel and minister to inmates. Commissioner James Donald said he plans to cut part-timers from the staff, a roughly $1.2 million savings.
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