Aug 13, 2008 7:46 pm US/Pacific
Judge May Seize $8B From Calif. For Prison Care
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ―
The court-appointed receiver in charge of California's prison inmate health care system on Wednesday asked a judge to seize $8 billion from the state treasury, a move that could further darken an already gloomy fiscal outlook.
The motion, filed in federal court in San Francisco, is the latest development in an attempted transformation of the nation's largest state prison system, where problems related to overcrowding have subjected the state to multiple lawsuits.
Clark Kelso, the federal receiver, said he needs the money to build new medical units for 10,000 sick or mentally ill inmates. Courts have found that the state is violating their constitutional rights because the care is so poor.
He said he is aware of the state's precarious financial situation but is required to press reforms nevertheless. The failure of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, lawmakers and other state officials to act forced Kelso to try to reach directly into the state treasury, he said.
"I cannot permit the state's fiscal and budget meltdown to interfere with my federal constitutional mandate to improve health care in California's prisons," Kelso said.
California is facing a $15.2 billion deficit for the fiscal year that began July 1 and remains without a budget because Democrats and Republicans have not found a way to compromise.
Whatever deal finally emerges is likely to include some combination of tax increases and billions of dollars in spending cuts to basic state services.
Schwarzenegger said he wasn't fazed by Wednesday's development, even with the state in a deep financial hole.
"Don't worry about any of that," he told reporters during an appearance outside his Capitol office. "Let's get the budget done, and everything will fall into place."
His aides said the administration will continue to work with Kelso and lawmakers to provide the health care funding "in a fiscally responsible way."
Republican lawmakers were less charitable, saying Kelso was failing to take the state's fiscal problems into account in proposing his $8 billion fix for prison health care.
That amount is almost as much as the entire annual budget - about $10.1 billion - for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
If U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson agrees to seize the money after a hearing scheduled for Sept. 22, it would punch an estimated $3.1 billion hole in state spending this year. The balance would be due later.
That's roughly the amount allotted to the University of California system each year, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance.
Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, R-Clovis, called Kelso's figure "a ridiculous sum." He questioned how the state could justify spending that amount on inmate medical care "when hardworking taxpayers can't even get health care in California."
Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, who is an intervener in the health care lawsuit, said he agrees the state needs to improve its delivery of medical care to inmates. But he said the federal courts have never studied in detail how the state should do that.
"No receiver has ever defined what constitutes a constitutional level of health care," Spitzer said. "They're throwing a lot of money at a standard that's never been established."
Kelso said he can't wait.
His motion also requests that the state pay fines of at least $2 million a day and said lawmakers could lessen the damage by approving a 25-year borrowing plan.
The state Senate rejected such a plan twice in May, when Republicans refused to support it. Because the measure relates to spending, it requires a two-thirds majority vote, giving Republicans veto power.
Kelso defended his request by saying the prison system must be able to provide consistent and competent medical, mental health and dental care.
"We're not delivering Cadillac quality health care," Kelso said. "We are really delivering a very basic level of care."
The federal judge took over the prison health care system in 2006, finding that negligence and malpractice was responsible for the death of about an inmate a week.
Kelso was appointed in January to oversee the reforms, replacing the original receiver. He wants $6 billion for new prison health care centers and $2 billion for improving existing ones.
The high cost is mainly because he has to build secure, fenced facilities, he said.
California's prison system has been besieged for years, primarily because of overcrowding. Schwarzenegger has tried to relieve the crowding by sending thousands of inmates to private prisons in other states, but problems persist.
The system is packed with about 159,000 inmates, well above the prisons' designed capacity of about 100,000.
Inmate advocacy groups say the overstuffed conditions lead to myriad problems, including the inadequate medical care and mental health treatment, and have filed numerous lawsuits against the state.
Many of those cases have been consolidated under a panel of three federal judges.
Last year, Schwarzenegger and lawmakers passed a jail and prison construction plan they hoped would go a long way to resolving the lawsuits.
They approved spending $7.4 billion to build 53,000 prison and county jail cells to ease crowding and create more space for inmate medical care.
The building program has not proceeded as hoped, and Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to allocate more money until the Legislature agrees on how to spend the money it approved last year.
Meanwhile, Kelso is forging ahead and has begun the studies needed to build the first two medical facilities. They would be outside a closed youth prison in Stockton and at the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
He also is considering additional sites near adult prisons in Folsom, Chino and Solano County and at closed youth prisons in Whittier and Ventura County.
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