Newsom should target prison budget for cuts

California's well-respected and non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office released revised updates for the state's projected budget deficit, pegging the number at an eye-popping $73 billion. That's up $5 billion from January — and is $35 billion higher than the number offered by California's not-as-well-respected and highly partisan governor. We'd put our money on the LAO's estimates over the governor's any day.

But whichever number one believes, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature need to get serious about cutting spending. Last year, they mostly embraced accounting gimmicks — expecting a resurgent economy to eventually bring a revenue windfall. The promised windfall hasn't arrived, so now lawmakers need to make tough choices.

That will involve cuts in many departments, but the LAO last week offered a blueprint for shaving costs in one major area: the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. As the Sacramento Bee reported, the state's total number of inmates has fallen 26 percent since 2019 as the result of various efforts to reduce incarceration rates, bringing the number to almost 94,000 in 32 prisons.

The governor's January budget plan would spend $14.5 billion the agency, a cutback of only 3 percent. This slight decrease “does not reflect anticipated increases in employee compensation costs in 2024-25 because they are accounted for elsewhere in the budget,” per the report. Those compensation costs — are the result of Newsom's cozy relationship with the prison guards' union.

For some perspective, consider this summary from a January CalMatters report: “The cost of imprisoning one person in California has increased by more than 90% in the past decade, reaching a record-breaking $132,860 annually.” Various criminal-justice reforms promised to save the state money by reducing prison populations, but the state prison bureaucracy remains almost as large as ever so those savings are elusive.

Back to the latest LAO numbers. They reveal that “the budget reflects operation of nearly 15,000 empty beds in 2024-25, which is projected to grow to about 19,000 by 2028. This means the state could deactivate around five additional prisons.” The administration, it notes, claims shuttering five more prisons would imperil various re-entry and other programs, but the cost of such programs is a small portion of the cost of maintaining thousands of empty beds.

The state is under a federal court order to keep prison populations below 137.5 percent of the prisons' design capacity, but LAO finds that “population will remain well below the court-ordered limit in future years.” That means the state could realistically follow the reports advice and shut down more of its unnecessary prisons and yards — and save significantly more money than detailed in the governor's proposal. The LAO says the closures could save an additional $1 billion.

Obviously, with troubling violent crime rates and an ongoing initiative drive to toughen up sentencing laws, the state needs to maintain some extra capacity. But we suspect the governor is reluctant to upset some of his political supporters — namely, a union that secures compensation for guards that's 40% higher than their local-government counterparts. The LAO found no “evident justification” for 2019 raises — right as the prison population began falling.

Ignore the governor and listen to the LAO: California can achieve significant cost savings in its prison budget. As the state faces daunting deficits, it's a good place to start.