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Oregon Prison Staffing Audit Reveals Little to No Potential Cost-Savings

Oregon Prison Staffing Audit Reveals Little to No Potential Cost-Savings

by Mark Wilson

As Oregon prison officials scramble to reduce a $1.4 billion bi-annual corrections budget, the Secretary of State released an audit concluding that they are unlikely to find significant cost-savings in prison staffing.

The average daily cost of housing an Oregon prisoner during the 2011-2013 budget cycle was an estimated $82.48, up 32 percent from $62.24 a decade ago, according to the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States. That estimate excludes $11.84 per day for management and overall system costs and $11.01 per day for debt service and construction costs. With those costs factored in, the average daily incarceration cost jumps to $105.33 per prisoner.

Overall, the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) budget has grown 39 percent in the last decade. ODOC is now Oregon’s fourth largest state agency, with 4,400 full-time employees.

Prison officials blame population growth, sentence length, prisoner medical costs, and employee compensation as the main drivers of the State’s unsustainable growth.

The number of prisoners has more than doubled since 1995, when Oregon voters passed a wide range of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Today, an estimated 40 percent of Oregon’s 14,205 prisoners are serving based on these mandatory minimums. Forecasters project that Oregon will see ODOC’s population add another 2,000 prisoners in the next decade.

Sentence length has also increased significantly. The average 1990 prisoner sentence of 2.4 years increased 32 percent to 3.2 years in 2009. Prison officials claim that the extra 10 months represented in that increase costs of $50,433 per prisoner.

Prisoner health care costs have also risen sharply from $72.3 million to $203.9 million in the last decade. In other words, Oregon taxpayers are now spending more than $100 million annually in prisoner health care costs.

Employee compensation, including health insurance and pensions, has also increased considerably. In a 12-state comparison of overall compensation for guards with 10 years of experience, Oregon came in near the top at 119 percent of the average, with an average annual salary of $50,000.

“By any measure, Oregon is more expensive,” said Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote. “The question is what we do about it.”

The audit, which was released July 26, 2012, offered few answers. Auditors examined personnel and overtime for staffing at two of Oregon’s 14 prisons. One was the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF), Oregon’s only women’s prison and male intake center. CCCF houses 1,740 female prisoners of all custody levels, including Oregon’s only woman on death row. The other facility was the Two Rivers Correctional Institution (TRCI), which houses 1,802 medium and minimum custody male prisoners.

“The auditors went through several years of scheduling decisions with special attention to all the places where savings might be found,” said Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown. The examined costs were from the 2009-2011 budgets, when ODOC spent $540 million - or nearly half its budget - on staffing costs.

But they turned up little. “We noted some areas where improvements may be possible,” auditors noted. However, “we did not identify substantial savings or inefficiencies in the management of overtime, or personnel costs of the two correctional facilities.”

Prison officials did not seem surprised by the findings. “The audit report illustrated many of the complexities that make it difficult to effectively manage our limited resources,” said ODOC Director Colette Peters.

As officials across the nation are reluctantly learning, answers to this vexing problem do exist. “Other states like Texas are ahead of us” in passing progressive sentencing reforms, admits Oregon Senator Jackie Dingfelder.

But Oregon officials aren’t yet ready to face reality. So Foote’s question remains unanswered as they continue to turn up every sofa cushion they can, looking for any loose change they can find. We’ll let you know if and when Oregon finally makes some meaningful prison reform, but don’t hold your breath because it might be a while.

Source: Statesman Journal

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