Eight Public Safety agencies struggling with budget cut
scenarios for 2011 presented a bleak outlook to the combined House and Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Public Safety Subcommittee.
The meeting attended by OPEA served as a reminder that the next fiscal
year will be tough.
The legislative committee asked several public safety
agencies to present scenarios for budget cuts ranging from 7.5 percent to 12.5
percent.
Agency director Joe Robertson from the Indigent Defense Fund
told the committee the agency has fewer employees and is struggling with the
work load.
“The agency has eliminated 18 positions and has implemented
furloughs,” said Robertson. “We will
begin FY 2011 down $900,000 because of some grant money that will run out, even
if our state funding remains the same.”
Director Tom Jordon from the Medical Examiner’s office
explained that deep budget cuts would result in the laying off of a third of
his work force. The agency is struggling
to win back national accreditation revoked last July because of inadequate staffing
levels and outdated equipment. The
agency currently has a backlog of 959 cases.
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward told the
joint House and Senate budget panel that more than a dozen proposed fee hikes
or new fees would generate an estimated $32.8 million for the cash-strapped
agency.
Ward said that among the other proposals are raising the
driver’s license reinstatement fee from $25 to $50, doubling the cost of size
and weight permits, and increasing parking fines and collision report costs.
Ward said the agency also is considering closing driver’s
license exam sites in 10 rural communities: Grove, Kingfisher, Stilwell,
Vinita, Weatherford, Heavener, Roland, Spiro, Stigler and Talihina.
Ward also explained he is looking at 23 days of furloughs for workers in the
next fiscal year.
OPEA, the only Association to testify about the agency
budgets told lawmakers that the cuts in public safety agencies without a thought
to raising fees was unconscionable.
“Sure these are tough economic times and employees in every
agency are worried about budget cuts,” said OPEA Deputy Director Scott
Barger. “But, deeper cuts into public
safety will only serve to break the back of the law enforcement community.”
“Additional budget cuts, furloughs, low staffing and below
market salaries do nothing but place greater stress on employees who should be
concentrating fully on protecting the public and returning home to their
families,” said Barger. “Not being distracted
by the state’s budget concerns.”
Further cuts would mean slashing even more employees who
watch over a growing number of inmates, Department of Corrections director
Justin Jones said, raising “just one new red flag after another that in my
business is indicative that you’re heading for a train wreck.”
By far the largest component of public safety appropriations
is the state’s prison system, which has an annual budget of about $500 million.
But cuts to last year’s budget reduced that appropriation to $461 million,
Jones said.
The agency already has reduced budgets at various
facilities, eliminated treatment programs for drug and sex offenders and
offered voluntary buyouts that were accepted by 119 employees.
The state’s prison system, which has added about 640 inmates
since July 1, currently is at 99-percent capacity. More cuts, Jones warned,
would lead to mandatory furloughs of all employees for 23 days each year, along
with eliminating between 659 and 987 workers.
Oklahoma
already incarcerates more women per capita than any other state, and ranks
fourth nationally in the overall incarceration rate, Jones said. Couple that
with reduced budgets, a growing number of inmates and a correctional
officer-to-inmate ratio over nearly 9 to 1, and conditions are ideal for a
major prison problem.
State lawmakers have about $1.2 billion less to spend this
year than they did last year. Even after tapping cash reserves and federal
stimulus money, budget cuts of more than $500 million will be necessary without
any new sources of revenue.
“OPEA has met with legislative leaders regarding FY 2011
budget talks,” said Barger. “It
certainly is stacking up to be a difficult year if only state government takes
cuts. higher education and common
education must take their share as well.
Then and only then can we spare state employees.”
Posted on
Tue, April 27, 2010
by Trish Frazier