Here we go again: State budget gap could be $20B

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=51871#ixzz0XBJ9ya4i

 

California could be facing a $20.7 billion budget deficit next year, according to sources familiar with a report to be released Wednesday morning by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

The number is staggering but not surprising, as California's finances continue to be in turmoil. We're hearing that a healthy chunk of the deficit is due to fixes made to the budget this year not bringing in as much cash as projected.

Stay tuned for the full report and what it means for California.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=51871#ixzz0XBJ61IOp

: Bureau of State Audits report on CDCR overpayment to employees

 

Dear Governor and Legislative Leaders:

 

Pursuant to the California Whistleblower Protection Act, the State Auditor’s Office presents

its investigative report concerning overpayments the Department of Corrections and

Rehabilitation (Corrections) made to its employees for inmate supervision. After an earlier

investigation we released in October 2008 revealed improper payments Corrections made to

employees at one correctional facility, we initiated an investigation to determine if it had made

such payments to employees at other correctional facilities.

 

 

This report concludes that from March 2008 through February 2009, Corrections improperly

granted $34,512 in payments for inmate supervision to 23 of the 153 employees whose records

we reviewed. These 23 employees worked at five of the six facilities we visited. In addition, we

estimated that Corrections may have improperly paid as much as $588,376 to its employees

throughout the State for inmate supervision during this 12-month period. We believe that these

improper payments were directly attributable to Corrections lacking the controls necessary to

ensure that employees supervising inmates satisfied all of the requirements for receiving the

payments. In addition, we found that for the most part Corrections had not initiated collection

efforts to recover the improper payments it had identified after our October 2008 investigation.

 

City of Stockton & San Joaquin County file lawsuit against CDCR, fedeal receiver Clark Kelso

LAWSUIT FILED OVER PLANS FOR NEW PRISONS: Stockton and San Joaquin County officials have sued the state over plans to build three new prisons on the outskirts of Stockton.

 

The suit, filed Tuesday in San Joaquin County Superior Court, says the state didn't consult local officials on the plans and ignored potential impacts on sewers, water, roadways, and police and fire services.

 

The state stunned local officials in October in announcing plans to convert DeWitt Nelson Youth Correctional Facility into a 1,133-bed medical center to house mentally and physically ill state prisoners, as well as with plans to turn the Karl Holton Youth Correctional Facility into a 1,734-bed medical center. These two projects come on top of long-term plans to turn the Northern California Women's Facility into a 500-bed re-entry facility.

 

The suit names the state, the California Department of Corrections and federal Receiver Jay Clark Kelso.

Patton State Hospital editorial from a retired CO

--------------------
Subject: Patton State Hospital Security Issues

Thursday, November 19, 2009
Patton State Hospital 
On June 4, 1983, after escaping the minimum-security yard of the California Institution for Men, inmate David Trautman murdered three members of the Ryen family and 11-year-old Chris Hughes with a hatchet.
What was unknown until then was that David Trautman was an aka for Kevin Cooper, an escaped patient of the Mayview State Hospital, a mental institution in Pennsylvania.
Many of the inmates of Patton State Hospital are capable of murder (Re: "Safety at Patton disputed").
I worked at Patton for 26 years as a correctional officer and I've seen changes initiated by theCalifornia Rehabilitation Center (CRC) administration in Norco and the Department of Mental Health at Patton that the surrounding community knows nothing about.
Due to the Coleman v. Schwarzenegger decision, the hospital is mandated by court order to improve medical care for the patients. It's commonplace for three or four ambulances to be called on grounds at roughly the same time for patient transport to local hospitals, each one requiring coverage by armed correctional officers and a chase vehicle, as per California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) operational policy. This necessitates that management pull officers from perimeter fence coverage to accompany the ambulances and operate the chase vehicles.
On more than three dozen occasions, I saw management vacate four or five perimeter posts at the same time, often during nighttime hours, leaving hundreds of yards of perimeter fence lineunattended for several hours or more.
Patton executive director Octavio Luna and the CRC administration are well aware of this ongoing situation. Eliminating 13 officers and returning them to CRC only makes the job more difficult for the correctional officers at Patton, further jeopardizes the surrounding community to potential escapees and invites a closer look.


MARK MANZANO Highland
Editor's note: The author is a retired correctional officer who worked at Patton State Hospital

Monthly meetings, etc.

Tomorrow is our monthly meeting with the Warden.  Barnes is still off on vacation, so I believe we will be sitting down with the CDW.  If you have any concerns you want brought up, let me know by e-mail TONITE.  And we will address the issues.  So far we have our problems with them cutting our outside line capability (they should have fixed it by now), Directions from the Captain on writing staff LOI's for stupid shit, and personnel assignment getting ready to not allow any holiday sign ups after January 2010 (due to some PY cuts).

Also, This Wednesday is our Chapter meeting.  If you have not already done so, please submit your additions prior to the meeting.  We have two months of catching up to do, so there will not be any time to address any new issues.  By December we are hoping to have our VP.  I am asking the membership's suggestions on this.  If you or somebody you would like to be in there, write me a note and put it in my box so we can have this handled by next month.  Of course that person must meet all SOP bylaws to be considered.

Stay Safe & Sane

Lori Olah

CCC Chapter President

Higher recidivism feared due to rehab cuts in CDCR

Recidivism feared with rehab reduction in California prisons

 

Neil Nisperos, Staff Writer

Posted: 11/12/2009 05:25:14 PM PST

Updated: 11/13/2009 12:33:56 AM PST

 

The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will soon slash drug rehab programs for state inmates as part of $1.2 billion in budget cuts - though some fear the severe program reduction may be more trouble than its benefit.

 

The system will have enough money to treat 2,350 inmates, down 80 percent from the current 12,164. State officials say between 600 and 900 counselors and teachers will be laid off in the corrections drug rehab and academic reduction plan.

 

The California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, which specializes in substance abuse rehabilitation, will have its treatment load reduced from 914 to 225.

 

The 650 inmates receiving treatment at the California Institution for Men in Chino will be reduced to 150. The 752 at the California Institution for Women will drop to 175.

 

"Those inmates will have very little treatment service to deal with behavioral issues that they've spent years to develop, most of of which was put on them from an early age," said Darrol Monfils, a drug counselor at the California Institution for Women. "Their chances of succeeding are slim."

 

Treatment programs, which had normally lasted nine months to more than a year, will be cut down to about three months. Monfils said he fears not only the loss of his job, but a reduction in the effectiveness of prison substance abuse programs and a possible increase in recidivism.

 

"California prisoners will be paroling inmates with little or no rehabilitation," he said. "They will be paroling with the same behaviors as they did when they arrived. Now, having said that, there will be a few exceptions to the rule, but they will be the larger minority.

 

Matthew Cate, state corrections secretary, said the state budget crisis has forced the department to make a "tough choice" with significant budget cuts and layoffs in order to meet a $1.2 billion shortfall. Cate and spokeswoman Peggy Bengs said Corrections is using the money it has to more carefully target substance abuse programs for the inmates most in need.

 

"One thing we are doing is we are now scientifically evaluating and assessing inmates, those at the highest risk of recidivism and so we are targeting our resources to that population group and identifying what their needs are," Bengs said.

 

She said the new approach is a "research-based risk and needs assessment tool to assist us to place the right inmates in the right program at the right time.

 

"We had a first-come, first-serve sort of a system, and that was not always an effective use of resources," she said.

 

David Conn, senior vice president for Mental Health Systems, Inc., the substance abuse rehabilitation company that contracts at CIW, said he has concerns, despite the targeting of resources.

 

"Let me say the state did not want to make these cuts," Conn said. "These were sort of last-minute budget cuts to balance the budget, and everyone agrees it's probably a foolish decision. Individuals who are incarcerated to support drug habits will not receive substance abuse treatment. The likelihood of them reoffending increases significantly."

 

Still, Bengs said it is difficult to foresee the impact the reductions will have on inmates returning to prison. Corrections, she said, will encourage community programs for inmates who participate in the prison rehabilitation programs.

 

"Statistics show that substance abuse programs combined with a community program after release, reduces recidivism," Bengs said.

 

"All of the inmates who participate in substance abuse in the prison have an opportunity to participate in community substance abuse programs. It's voluntary but they are strongly encouraged to do it and we've had a good success with that."

 

Contracts for substance abuse companies operating at substance abuse treatment programs in state prisons end by January. Monfils, like other rehabilitation counselors, won't know if he will return to work next year until Corrections announces winning bids on new contracts by the first of next year.

 

Conn said the reductions will reduce his rehab workers from a high of 970 to 120.

 

"I'm somewhat heartbroken and sad and of course unsure about what I'm going to do," Monfils said. "But the inmates are upset about it as well, because they love being here and they love coming here."

 

Sergeant Fired

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Inside Barber Jon's in Folsom, apprentice Aaron Ralls learns a trade he never thought he'd be doing. Ralls is without a job because, he said, he tried to save a life inside California State Prison, Sacramento. "Two years ago, I thought I would have been a lieutenant by now," Ralls said. In April 2007, Ralls, then a six-year correction sergeant, was responding to an inmate attempting to swallow an unknown object. "I grabbed him around his lower jaw area to keep in from swallowing up what ever he was trying to swallow. For seven seconds. After that, I let him go," he said. According to state records, Ralls was fired for using "excessive force on an inmate," "failing to document his use of force in hisincident report," and attempting to "conceal his own improper actions" by telling officers to change their incident reports. "It angers me -- none of that happened at all," Ralls said. Ralls admits only to correcting an officer's wording, but not changing witness accounts. "Yes, I did correct some reports, but that was my job as a sergeant. We review every report ... countless grammatical errors andsentence structures that didn't make since," he said. In June, a judge with the California Personnel Board heard Ralls' case and came to the conclusion Ralls was guilty of "inexcusable neglect of duty," "dishonesty," and "failure of good behavior." But that same judge overturned the state's decision to fire him and said Ralls' conduct warrants a demotion to "position of correctional officer" -- but not firing. Five months later, after two appeals, he's still not allowed back to work. "I have no idea why I have not been back to work, why I have not been given my back pay," he said. Despite some apprehension about returning to the same job site, Ralls is pressing forward. He's taking his case to Superior Court to get his job back. A hearing is set for Thursday afternoon. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not give an interview on the matter, simply responding that "personnel matters are confidential and are protected from disclosure."

CDCR's official filing in response to three-judge panel order

Click on the tittle for full report

SEIU prison teachers protest CDCR cuts at CCWF

 By Sara Sandrik

Chowchilla, California (KFSN) -- The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is planning to cut between 600 and 900 prison staff members across the state to deal with a more than one billion dollarbudget deficit.

But employees at the two prisons in Chowchilla say the proposed lay-offs come with too high of a price for the public.

Dozens of staff members from the two women's prisons in Chowchilla rallied outside the gates of the Central California Women's Facility in hopes of sending a message to the community.

John Plain said, "The state of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to severely cut the number of teachers who work in prisons and that will severely impact public safety, and we want them to know what's coming."

Many of the protestors are teachers or vocational instructors. They say their classes and programs help prepare the women serving time inside these walls to be contributing members of society once their sentences are complete. They teach everything from reading and math to carpentry and landscaping.

Catherina Fowler said, "We also teach life skills which is important. We teach people how to balance a checkbook, how to read a contract, how to apply for a job."

The teachers say without those skills, the women are more likely to commit crimes and end up back in prison. But prison officials say the state budget has left them with no choice but to scale back the programs.

Bart Fortner said, "We're looking at anywhere from 30 to 50 percent cut in staffing in our education and vocation programs."

Spokesman Bart Fornter says CCWF and the other state prisons will try to minimize the impact of those cuts by giving help first to the inmates who are closest to being released. There are also plans to use teachers aides instead of certified teachers ... and to train inmates to mentor each other. But the protestors say those substitutes won't be the same. And it will still leave them out in the cold.

Barbara Greninger said, "We are about to join one of the largest unemployment lines there is."

The protestors say the programs also save taxpayers money by keeping released inmates from returning to prison. They're asking residents to contact their legislators and demand they prevent the lay-offs.

Meanwhile, officials here at CCWF say they're still waiting on word on exactly how many positions will be cut.

Governor submits plan to cut prison population

By Michael Rothfeld

November 13, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday gave federal judges a road map to reducing state prison overcrowding by waiving some state laws to allow sentences to be reduced and new private prisons to be built.

But the governor also disavowed those solutions as illegal.

An initial plan that Schwarzenegger submitted in September was rejected three weeks ago by the three judges, who threatened him with contempt of court for failing to meet their demand for a proposal to reduce the inmate population by 40,000 prisoners over two years.

With his new proposal, the governor appeared to be trying to avoid open defiance of the judges without giving the impression that he is contradicting his opposition to their efforts in an appeal now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The state is arguing that it is improper for the federal courts to intrude into the state's affairs.

"We're saying the court . . . doesn't have the authority to do any of this, but the court obviously disagrees with us," Matthew Cate, the governor's prisons chief, told reporters.

The governor said the new plan would open up a total of 42,000 prison beds by December 2011, some through new construction and some by sentencing changes to limit the number of inmates the state incarcerates.

He heeded the judges' Oct. 21 order to identify state laws that they would need to suspend to meet their goal. But Schwarzenegger also told the judges he did not believe it would be legal for them to waive those laws.

U.S. District Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton and U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt are overseeing two long-running lawsuits on medical and mental health care for inmates. They have ruled that overcrowding has led to care so poor that it violates the Constitution, and in August they ordered Schwarzenegger to provide a blueprint for easing the crowding.

Some of the governor's new plan echoes what he submitted previously: reduction in the inmate population through sentencing changes, which would need approval by lawmakers, and construction for which the state already has authority.

But it also includes measures, accounting for more than 25,000 inmates, that the Legislature rejected during the budget fight last summer: home detention with satellite tracking devices for some inmates; permitting some felony offenders to serve time in county jails instead of state prisons; and reducing sentences for property crimes.

Schwarzenegger said that he would renew his plea to lawmakers to approve those proposals but that if lawmakers did not, the court could waive elements of the penal code or order the state not to imprison certain inmates. Cate said the state believes "that it would be an improper order, and we would appeal it."

"If our appeal is denied. . , we're going to obey federal court orders or risk sanctions," he said.

The governor's plan also says the judges would need to suspend laws for the state to build space for 5,000 new high-security private prison beds in California and contract for the use of 1,500 additional private prison beds out of state. Private prisons in California have been built only for minimum-security inmates.

If lawmakers refuse to authorize new construction, the judges would have to waive portions of the state contracting code, environmental regulations, civil service laws and the state Constitution to allow new prisons to be built, according to the governor's filing.

They could also allow the state to send prisoners to facilities outside California beyond mid-2011, when its authority to do so expires.

Donald Specter, a lawyer for inmates, said after reviewing a summary of the governor's new proposal that it appeared to be "in the ballpark." He said certain details might need to be adjusted, but "this time it looks like it's a serious effort."

If the judges determine that the governor's plan is unsatisfactory, they have said, they will allow lawyers for inmates two weeks to submit a proposal and would then consider imposing a solution on the state.