Alabama Prisons Still Badly Underfunded: Allen
The $2.5 billion General Fund budget passed by the Alabama Legislature gives the state prison system less than Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen said Friday is needed to operate the overcrowded, aging prison system. From AL.com.
The Department of Corrections is getting $359 million in this year’s scaled-back budget. The budget approved by the Legislature on Thursday would provide $366 million for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. That’s about $4 million less than the governor requested. The House originally wanted to give prisons more than Gov. Bob Riley requested, but the Senate wanted to use several million in prison money to fund festivals, rescue squads, civic programs and other projects in senators’ districts. The budget approved Thursday is a compromise that gives both representatives and senators money for projects in their districts …
Allen, the prisons commissioner, said under the original budget passed by the House, the prison system would have been $14 million short of what’s needed to continue operations at the current level … “Now we are looking at a $20 million shortfall just to do what we are doing now,” Allen said. “We’re going to have to find some money some place. We’ve been trimming fat for the last couple of years and we are just out of fat.”
Rep. Harry Shiver, R-Bay Minette, represents a district that includes two of the state’s toughest penitentiaries, Holman and Fountain prisons near Atmore. He said he was “disillusioned” by the budget cuts and worried they would further compromise the safety of corrections officers. “We’ve already got 150 inmates per guard in some places in our prisons,” Shiver said. “I wish we could hire more. I wish we could pay them more. I don’t think in Montgomery that prisons are at the top of the priority list.”
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