SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal judicial orders are mostly to blame for a $3 billion drop in the budget savings that California prison officials promised four years ago, corrections officials said Wednesday.
They projected billions of dollars in reduced prison spending starting in 2012 through a long-term plan to dramatically trim the inmate population in response to federal court orders and recession-driven budget pressures.
But instead there is a $3 billion annual difference between the promised savings and the $10.5 billion corrections department budget Gov. Jerry Brown proposed earlier this month, in part because the state also chose to boost the number of prison beds available.
Federal judges required the state to reduce the headcount in the state’s 34 main adult prisons more than officials wished, according to the revised long-term plan Brown’s administration released Wednesday at the insistence of state lawmakers.
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