Auditors Criticize Prisons’ Spending

A giant branch of state government, the Department of Corrections, outstrips its budget by tens of millions of dollars each year because of excessive overtime pay and exorbitant use of sick leave, a new state audit concludes.

In each of the last four years, the Corrections Department has asked lawmakers for more money--from $20 million to $200 million a year--primarily because of its own sloppy fiscal management and vacancies that force employees to work longer hours, according to the audit.

The Corrections Department houses about 158,000 inmates in its 33 prisons. Its budget of $4.8 billion a year is exceeded only by what state taxpayers pay for education and health.

Asked by lawmakers to review the department’s chronic budget shortfalls, the Bureau of State Audits blamed a frequent mismatch between the department’s spending plans and its spending authority. Much of the money the department asked for on an emergency basis was used to pay prison guards overtime.

If the department filled 1,500 vacant positions, auditors concluded, it could save taxpayers $42 million in overtime costs each year.

The department also could save money by curtailing sick leave, auditors reported. The amount of sick leave taken last fiscal year was 64% higher than the amount budgeted.

Russ Heimerich, a corrections spokesman, said the department has had trouble recruiting enough people to staff its prisons, especially in places such as Orange, Riverside, Marin and Monterey counties where living costs are high.

“We don’t want to spend as much as we do on overtime,” he said, but “we’re not going to leave the gun towers empty.”

As for sick leave, Heimerich said, “The nature of the business is such that we’re going to have more people out with injuries and illnesses which stress may aggravate.”

Many of state auditor Elaine M. Howle’s recommendations on improving the department’s financial management “are steps that we began taking before the Bureau of State Audits even walked in the door,” Heimerich said.

The audit also criticized the Corrections Department for using a more expensive, less effective program to help parolees find and keep jobs.

Had the department stuck to its more effective program, auditors concluded, it could have saved $716,360 last year and gotten jobs for another 534 parolees.

“It’s easy in hindsight to say one program is more effective than another,” Heimerich said.