The $1.4 billion budget crater left by the state revenue forecast last week may require new cuts of up to 10 percent in many state government programs over the next few months.
But cuts of any size might be impossible at some agencies, such as the Department of Corrections. Secretary Bernie Warner said that to make cuts, he would need to trim prison sentences by up to 120 days for all inmates except sex offenders and people imprisoned for violent crimes.
Warner also would need to end state supervision for all convicts – including killers and rapists – after their prison terms. Exceptions would be made for those sentenced under special sentencing alternatives in which supervision is a court requirement.
“Ten percent … is about $160 million for the department. That has the potential to be pretty devastating to public safety,” Warner said in an interview at his Tumwater office.
Warner said he could not support any of those cuts with a clear conscience. But with budget shortfalls looming again, Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget director, Marty Brown, asked all agencies to identify ways they could cut 5 percent to 10 percent from their budgets in the remaining 21 months of the budget cycle.
And those plans are due Thursday. Gregoire will have to consider cuts of that depth at many agencies – or look for new revenues – if she is going to close the new budget gap.
“People are antsy. People are having a hard time,” said Dan Cochran, a community corrections officer who has worked 20 years in different roles at Corrections and now deals with about 30 offenders face to face in the Yelm area. “I do not think there is any more room to give.”
Cochran’s community corrections partner Sharese Jones has 29 offenders to look after. Jones said most DOC staffers do the best they can under the circumstances and that because of past cuts, they now keep tabs only on the most high-risk offenders.
On Thursday, Jones and Cochran teamed up with a Rochester-area CCO to arrest a high-risk sex offender accused of failing a drug test, in effect violating his terms of release.
Warner said his proposal still was evolving and that most of it needs legislative approval for the drastic policy changes. The chance of getting them passed may be slim, considering that lawmakers balked at cutting inmate sentences by just 30 days this year.
But Warner’s plan helps show how one of the largest state agencies is faring after three years of back-to-back-to-back spending cuts, leaving it unable to accommodate more without policy changes that have been unthinkable – or “absurd,” as budget director Brown put it.
Corrections says it cut $250 million over the past 2 1/2 years, including closing three prison facilities and stopping supervision of 12,000 offenders after their prison terms.
19,000 OFFENDERS
The community corrections division still has 19,000 offenders to supervise, said Anmarie Aylward, assistant secretary for community corrections. Those still under supervision have been imprisoned for violent and sex offenses, had previous violent convictions, or received special sentences requiring drug and mental health monitoring.
Aylward said that just since July, her community corrections division has reduced staffing by about 25 people as it keeps shrinking the number of offenders on its case loads, and more staff cuts are in the works as case loads fall.
The state’s two other large agencies are grappling with similar problems. The Department of Social and Health Services, which is keeping mum about its list until Thursday, must identify $573 million in cuts. At the Health Care Authority, director Doug Porter must show how he could cut some $445 million.
As reported before, Porter is looking at eliminating the Basic Health Plan, which subsidizes health insurance for about 40,000 low-income workers, and ending the Disability Lifeline for people unable to work and lacking other options for aid. And that’s just for starters.
Poter says he cannot get to his worst-case target of 10 percent without also eliminating state-paid prescription-drug coverage for low-income Medicaid clients who are not in a hospital or nursing home or making reductions in payments to hospitals.
Brad Shannon: 360-753-1688
bshannon@theolympian.com
www.theolympian.com/politicsblog
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