By JAMES MERRIWEATHER
Dover Bureau reporter
11/20/2002
The state Department of Correction requested a 4.47 percent budget increase Tuesday for the fiscal year that begins July 1, which would bring spending to just under $194.98 million.
Anticipated revenue shortfalls already have prompted an effort to cut $95.2 billion from the state budget for the current year. Jennifer "JJ" Wagner, the state budget director, issued a reminder Tuesday that revenues are expected to be even tighter next year. She thanked Correction Commissioner Stanley W. Taylor Jr., for budget-cutting efforts to that point.
At the budget hearing in Dover before Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's administrative staff, Taylor described his request for fiscal 2004 as bare bones, saying it was driven by the growth of the incarcerated population and the costs associated with providing them basic services. That includes sharply increased costs for inmate medical and mental health services and food.
As of Tuesday, the state's prison system was housing 6,660 inmates, or about 73 inmates above operating capacity. Based on experience over the previous decade, Taylor said he expected the population to continue to grow by an average of 225 to 250 inmates a year. He raised the prospect of calling next year for a 1,000-bed construction program - which would be on top of a 2,500-bed expansion finished in late 2000.
"The [prison] population is likely to drive us there sooner rather than later," he said.
He said recent reports by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics listed Delaware as 10th among the states in the proportion of its citizens serving prison time. The state's rank rises to third when supervision of residents on probation or parole are figured into the mix.
"Those are just some of the indicators that say maybe we need to take a look at how we do business," he said, suggesting that it might be time for the Delaware General Assembly to take a look at alternative sentencing and other means of reducing the prison population.
As a money-saving measure, Taylor said he probably would recommend that construction be pushed back a year for 100 planned drug treatment beds at Baylor Women's Correctional Institution near New Castle. That would save $4 million in capital expenditures and delay the need for operating money for the facility until fiscal 2005.
As for fiscal 2004, the proposed operating budget would include 21 new employee slots, including $417,000 for 11 workers to staff 100 new beds that will be installed in a converted medical facility at Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna. That space became available because a new infirmary at the prison was included in a 900-bed expansion completed in December 2000.
Reach James Merriweather at 678-4273 or jmerriweather@delawareonline.com.
