Editorial, “California Prison Mismanagement Extends to Budget Overruns,” The San Francisco Chronicle, February, 5, 2004.

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature hope to regain control of the California Department of Corrections they should start by putting an end to the fiscal recklessness that allows the agency to routinely overspend its budget.

This is a department that seems to be out of control in more ways than one.

Recent accounts of prison guards' misconduct, physical intimidation of whistle-blowers and high-level cover-ups are all the more deplorable considering that taxpayers are digging deep to pay for it.

Over the past five years alone, the CDC has exceeded its budget by $1.4 billion, continuing a decade-old trend that has recently picked up pace. The agency overspent its budget by $50 million in 2000, and by $150 million in 2001. Now, with five months still left in this fiscal year, the agency is seeking a whopping $500 million supplement to make ends meet until it is funded again in June.

The cost overruns are maddening in that the CDC has a $5.2 billion annual budget which consumes about 6 percent of the state's general fund. Its spending practices are unacceptable, particularly at a time when other agencies are struggling to stay afloat and Sacramento is working feverishly to close an impending $14 billion shortfall in the 2004-05 budget.

It seemed as if Schwarzenegger was on the right track by proposing a $400 million cut for prisons. The cut also included other agencies such as the Youth Authority and the Board of Prison Terms - but it still was a welcome attempt to make prisons cut back like every other state department.

That was before Schwarzenegger countered the move a few days later, quietly siphoning $435 million from the general fund to pay for CDC overtime and other prison requests.

There is, of course, some justification for flexibility in a corrections' budget. Managers cannot anticipate crises such as lockdowns or riots. But, as recent Senate hearings showed, sometimes these "crises" appear to be the result of inept or even devious actions by prison officials. Besides that, no one is being held accountable for these huge overruns.

As it is, the CDC gets a pot of money and doles it out to each of the state's 33 prisons for wardens to spend as they see fit. If the money runs out, as it usually does, the wardens then request more and the CDC director returns to the Legislature to get it.

The system leaves taxpayers funneling money into a system without really knowing what's needed or how it's spent.

Requiring each prison to account for its own spending could help solve the problem. Also, wardens should be assigned budget specialists to help run our financially complex prisons.

But it won't matter unless lawmakers demand careful scrutiny of where the money goes.

"You need to justify the numbers (not) just say give me $5 billion," said Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, chair of the Senate Prison Oversight Committee.

So far, Sacramento has been unwilling to pay much attention. The result has been murky accounting, overspending and the kind of abuse that often occurs when nobody is looking.