SACRAMENTO – For the second time this week, the state Senate yesterday rejected a $7 billion borrowing plan to provide better health care for prison inmates.
The receiver appointed by a federal court to oversee inmate health care threatened that the alternative is to take the money directly from the state treasury. Doing so would cut into other state services at a time the state is facing a $15.2 billion budget deficit.
The spending proposal by court-appointed receiver J. Clark Kelso fell three votes short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass. The vote was 24-15.
Republicans again objected to giving the receiver more money instead of relying on a separate $7.4 billion construction bond approved a year ago by lawmakers and the governor. That money will fund 53,000 prison and jail cells to ease prison crowding.
Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, said construction of prisons and health care facilities should also be part of negotiations over a proposed settlement of lawsuits about crowded prisons.
“Do we want another partial solution? Or do we want the whole solution?” Runner asked.
Kelso said he needs money immediately to start designing and building seven facilities across the state. They would house 10,000 ill and mentally ill inmates.
Taking the $7 billion from California's general fund would mean less money for other state programs, Democrats and aides to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warned yesterday.
The receiver wants $70 million immediately and $3.4 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1. Kelso wants $2 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year and $1.5 billion the year after that.
If the state refuses, Kelso could ask a federal judge to order the payments.
“This is a dangerous game of 'chicken,' ” said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. “Be careful what you wish for.”
Lawsuits on behalf of inmates have prompted federal courts to step in to oversee several parts of the state prison system.
The suits claim most of the problems, including unconstitutionally poor health care and mental health services, stem from overcrowding in California's 33 prisons. With 170,000 inmates, the system is about 70 percent over capacity, with many prisoners warehoused in converted gyms and hallways.
