(Host) Lawmakers appear headed for a weekend adjournment after reaching tentative agreement on a number of key bills, including the state budget for next year.
One potential obstacle to adjournment was removed when House and Senate negotiators agreed on the timetable for a prison reorganization.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports:
(Kinzel) Under the plan, male inmates at the St. Albans prison would be sent out of state and the facility would be renovated to house all of the state’s female inmates.
This will allow the state to close the women’s jail in Waterbury and turn the Windsor jail, which also houses women now, into a second work camp.
The legislation is expected to save the state roughly $10 million a year, and most of the savings will be directed to community programs for non-violent offenders who have substance abuse problems.
The House wanted to delay the plan for another year, but the Senate insisted that it be put into place during the fiscal year that begins in July.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Sears says it’s critical to start reducing the state’s corrections budget as soon as possible:
(Sears) “We know the cost of doing nothing or delaying it by 2011 would be a cumulative $80 million to $200 million. And that’s not something the state can afford not to do. None of us really want to do this. It’s not something that we’re overjoyed about doing. But the reality of our spending choices are being guided by corrections policy that really is not helping to protect the public safety."
(Kinzel) Sears says the goal of the legislation is to sharply reduce the recidivism rate of non-violent offenders who have substance abuse problems – currently about 55 percent of inmates in this group re-offend when they get out of jail.
(Sears) “We feel in the long run it increases public safety, but also allows us to reinvest some of that money and starts to really get a sharp break in the continued increase in corrections spending, which is just unsustainable unless you want to continue to cut transportation projects, cut higher education health care, or wherever you want to go in the budget."
(Kinzel) Sears says the construction of a second work camp in Windsor for non-violent offenders is also designed to save the state money because these inmates will be placed in a less costly facility.
For VPR News I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier