Prison Spending - Archive

Everyone knows the truth. In California it is serious drug addiction that drives homelessness, overdose deaths and retail theft. The solution is mass treatment. Voters took a step in that direction in March by approving Proposition 1, which authorizes Bonds for Mental Health Treatment Facilities. The next step must be taken in November with voter approval of Proposition 36, The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act that will give judges the tools to require treatment.

It’s election season. Citizens looking for questions to ask of candidates or state officials might consider the following two.

Govern For California issues statement on proposed CCPOA Contract (Bargaining Unit 6)

As of June 30, 2018, California’s prisons (CDCR) incarcerated 130,317 inmates supervised by 56,538 correctional employees paid $4,985,455,000 in salaries.

The OC Register cited Govern For California in a recent editorial about cynical games being played by the Legislature and Governor in awarding excessive compensation to state prison guards.

Dear State Legislators,

Last year we wrote to you about the alarming $500 million per year salary increase you granted to state prison guards under a contract extension executed in June 2021 and the state’s failure to comply with Subsection (c) of Gov. Code Section 19826, which requires a study of salaries of employees in comparable occupations before awarding a new contract. Because you did not commission such a study, we did, and the results were shocking. In our note, we implored you to hold the line in the next contract, which will come into effect upon the expiration of the current contract on July 2 — just six weeks from now.

Dear Legislators,

At $7.3 billion, current year salary spending on Corrections employees is 33% higher than forecast by last year’s budget and nearly 50% more than the prior year.

This report examines the compensation of California state correctional officers relative to several other groups. It examines wages in detail because of the richness of available data. It examines benefits in less depth because available data are far less comparable and detailed.

Last June, the governor and legislature granted a $500 million salary increase to state correctional officers without complying with Subsection (c) of Gov. Code Section 19826, which requires the state to produce a study of salaries of employees in comparable occupations before awarding a new contract. So Govern For California commissioned such a study, an advance copy of which is being made available to you in your capacity as a member of a Budget or Public Safety Committee. Its conclusions are stark:

In June the governor and legislature quietly granted an unwarranted $500 million per year salary increase to state prison guards using a loophole inserted into state code in 1981.

CA Gov. Code Section 19826 deals with “Administration of Salaries” amounting to $20 billion per year.

Today marks the date by which third quarter estimated income tax payments are due in California. Some of the money will go to a $500 million per year salary increase awarded in June to prison guards by the Legislature and Governor without complying with state law.

When I made San Francisco my home in 1977, little did I know that the California Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown had just made prison guards lords over state politics and policy. That’s the year lawmakers enacted the Dills Act, which extended collective bargaining rights to state employees. Since then, CA lawmakers have worked hard to please them, especially prison employees.

The principal job of states in our federalist system is to provide domestic services such as education, health and public safety. California executes some services well (e.g., Covered California) but generally residents are served poorly, students are treated more like captives than customers, insufficient value for money is obtained from healthcare providers, and public safety employees are excessively compensated. All that is fixable.

Dear State Legislators,

Don’t do it. Don’t sign off on the new contract Governor Newsom has negotiated with Unit 6. It’s another giveaway to a powerful special interest — Corrections employees — that already collects gobs of money that could be used elsewhere. 55,000 employees already collecting more than $5 billion per year in salary and costing billions more in unfunded retirement costs for attending to just 100,000 inmates is bad enough.

Here’s something Assembly Members Luz Rivas, David Chiu, Richard Bloom and Buffy Wicks don’t want their constituents to know:

Dear Legislators,

In a world in which The Intercept is criticizing biotech firm Moderna for potentially collecting $10 billion for creating a life-saving COVID vaccine, how do you think you should be viewed for the $10 billion you shower on CA state prison employees every single year?

Dear CA State Legislators,

You lead the country in spending on prison employees. After granting them six salary increases since 2010, you are spending >$5 billion/yr on salaries for 57,000 state prison employees attending to ~115,000 inmates. But that’s not all. You also spend >$4 billion/yr on insurance subsidies for retired employees, the most expensive of whom are prison guards and CHP. These subsidies, known as “Other Post Employment Benefits” (“OPEB”), are in addition to pensions, which you allow prison guards and CHP to start collecting in their 50’s.

Prison guards are the most expensive category of California’s state pension expenditures, which have exploded.

Nearly five decades ago, elected officials in California started enacting sentencing laws that rapidly filled the state’s prisons. Only in the last decade did that process start to reverse. Effecting political change is not for people with short attention spans.

Several members of the GFC Network have asked, “how can a state legislator get away with saying one thing but doing another?” Here’s how:

The Washington Post’s masthead reads “Democracy Dies in Darkness” but sometimes democracy dies in plain sight in Sacramento, where unverified assertions are often employed to justify billions in spending, cover up accounting frauds, shift blame for undue political influence, and more.

Last night at the presidential debate in Atlanta more than one contender blamed political dysfunction on the political power of billionaires. But that’s a myth. Try finding a billionaire who earns anything close to the 10,000x return on political spending earned by California’s 57,000 public prison employees who collect $10 billion in annual compensation and benefits for $1 million in political spending. Political power is correlated more with focus than wealth.

University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez knows something about economics but apparently not about politics.

Alfred Hitchcock often employed a technique in his films known as a “MacGuffin,” which is an object, device or event that draws attention from the real plot but is largely insignificant itself. MacGuffins are also employed in California politics, as the example below demonstrates.

Today the legislature passed AB 74, the state budget for the 2019–20 fiscal year, which starts July 1. Governor Newsom is expected to sign it. Here’s our summary view.

Later this year California Governor Gavin Newsom will negotiate a new contract with state prison workers that must be approved by the legislature. The consequences are big, especially for discretionary programs supplied by the state’s General Fund.

This year California’s governor and state legislature are choosing to spend $15 billion on the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), which incarcerates 127,000 prisoners. 

The California Prison Guards Association (CCPOA) is spending $500,000 on TV ads against Marshall Tuck in the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Why would the largest recipient of state spending on California’s prison-industrial complex care about the identity of the state’s next SPI? 

Governor Jerry Brown is negotiating yet another salary increase for state prison employees, the fourth in seven years.

CA’s governor negotiates compensation with 209,000 employees. This year Governor Brown proposes $19 billion in salaries for them…

Still not walking his talk.

State Assembly Member Tony Thurmond has proposed legislation imposing a tax on private prisons in California to help fund early education. Early education is great but levying a tax on private prisons would generate next to no money for it. That’s because only 1.5% — less than $200 million — of California’s $12 billion of prison spending goes to private prison facility owners or operators.

LBJ, Trump and Nancy Skinner.

Viewers of Steven Spielberg’s new film The Post are being reminded of the murderous lies told by the Johnson Administration as it ramped up the war in Viet Nam. While today’s media is more capable of catching lies as they occur, most focus on high profile deceivers like Donald Trump. But deception isn’t limited to the Oval Office. There’s plenty in Sacramento too.

It goes well beyond sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment by elected officials in California is all over the news but less visible forms of political immorality are just as prevalent. One example is that of state legislators who sell students, families and vulnerable citizens down the river to boost prison guard compensation. Another is legislators protecting the profits and turfs of cronies while ignoring the healthiness and convenience of 14 million customers of the state’s sub-functional single-payer system, Medi-Cal. Other examples include state officials opposing student civil rights and legislators robbing K-12 students and young teachers of their futures out of fear of powerful commercial interests.