| Wha-oh! ... from Gongwer. CORRECTIONS: The department will see an $87.5 million cut in general fund spending compared to the current fiscal year and much of that will be made up by DOC officials combing through various programs to come up with the equivalent of $841 in savings per prisoner. The conference report concurs with Governor Jennifer Granholm's recommendation to close the prisons in Standish, Muskegon and Hiawatha. Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Salem Twp.), chair of HB 4437 , said the department will be asked to look at a variety of programs to cut costs, including prisoner health care and education, food service, transportation and facility maintenance.
Emph. mine ...this screams out, "We done been privatized!" Gongwer says that the entire budget was cut about 4 percent. Meanwhile, tomorrow, general government will get together and discuss cuts to shared revenue. Currently, it looks like cuts to local communities, which pay for most of your law enforcement resources, will still top double digits. The correllation isn't exact (Corrections is its own budget; shared revenue is part of general government), but the question is worth asking whether the comparisons are strong enough to suggest a misplaced sense of priorities. |
