Lawmakers Question Prison Plan

State prison officials failed to adequately analyze the cost of shutting a Southern California internal affairs office that has handled some of the most explosive prison misconduct cases in recent years, members of a Senate committee charged Thursday.

The lawmakers stopped short of accusing prison authorities of proposing to shut the Rancho Cucamonga office for political reasons.

But they expressed skepticism and anger during a wide-ranging hearing focusing on fiscal management practices in the $5-billion-a-year Department of Corrections.

“Eyebrows have to be raised,” said Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), presiding over the oversight hearings with Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough). “Either they are incompetent, or something malicious lurks below the surface. Neither possibility makes anyone comfortable.”

At prison officials’ suggestion, Gov. Gray Davis, seeking to close a $38-billion budget gap, proposed an array of cuts to the Office of Investigative Services, including shutting the Rancho Cucamonga unit, saving the state about $900,000.

At Thursday’s hearing, legislators said the unit handled three noteworthy cases in recent years, including the investigation at Corcoran state prison during the 1990s into inmate shootings and allegations that prison officers set up inmates to fight one another.

Another years-long investigation into sexual misconduct involving female inmates at the California Institute for Women in Chino resulted in the resignations of 17 prison employees. Two prison officers pleaded guilty to having sex with inmates.

A third case attracted attention earlier this week when two internal affairs investigators in the Rancho Cucamonga unit filed a complaint alleging that the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. intervened to hamper a probe into allegations that officers at Chino state prison beat five inmates a year ago.

In their complaint, investigators Robert Maldonado and Richard Feaster raised the possibility that the office was slated for closure because investigators had run afoul of the influential prison guards union.

At Thursday’s hearing, David Tristan, the Corrections Department’s chief deputy director, testified that there were no discussions of political considerations leading to the decision to recommend the office’s closure.

The prison guards union has taken no position on the closure. But the union has been sharply critical of investigations undertaken by that office.

“They were an awful unit,” Lance Corcoran, a top executive in the prison officers union, said Thursday. “They blew cases .... Anything that was in the media, they went after. Anything that was real, they were inept.”

Under Davis’ proposal, the Rancho Cucamonga unit’s work would be shifted to the internal affairs unit in Bakersfield. Prison officials testified that the savings could be less than what Davis suggested in his proposed budget -- and senators said the closure could end up costing the state money, in part because investigators would have to travel hundreds of miles to handle cases at Southern California prisons.

The round trip between Bakersfield and Calipatria state prison in Imperial County is 744 miles.

“There is absolutely no fiscal justification,” Romero said. “It is fuzzy math.”

Legislators also criticized a practice in which corrections officials hire retirees to perform an array of tasks for as long as six months in a year. Some of them, such as psychiatrists, offer expertise.

Tristan, the chief deputy director, is himself a “retired annuitant.” But others are retired clerks, correctional officers and lieutenants.

“They are very cost-effective,” Wendy Still, the department’s chief financial officer, said, adding that the department would spend more money if it were to hire full-time employees for the positions.

Retirees called back to duty receive their full pensions, including 90% of their closing pay and health-care coverage, plus their salary from their prior job for the six months when they are back at work.

In many instances, they are paid to commute to their posts.

In at least 30 instances, the retirees collected unemployment benefits when their six-month stint ended.

Corrections officials said Thursday that they are considering a policy of not hiring back retirees who collect unemployment insurance.

At Speier’s urging, Department of Corrections Inspector General Steve White pledged to conduct an audit analyzing another issue that has been a focus of the oversight hearings -- placing prison workers on paid leave pending the outcome of investigations into misconduct.

White promised to investigate the incident at Chino state prison in which officers allegedly beat inmates a year ago.