Two weeks ago, House budget chief Brian Dempsey urged the Massachusetts House to support a midyear spending bill because it included funding needed to ensure the Department of Correction, which runs the state’s prisons, can meet its payroll in June.
“We believe it’s important to move forward on that,“ Dempsey deadpanned before the House rubber-stamped a $45.5 million spending bill (H 3718).
The Senate last week passed a bill that includes $15 million in payroll funds, but added an amendment that appears to have slowed the bill’s progress.
The bill’s advancement in the House came a week after the release of a MassINC report that concluded correction department and county sheriff spending combined had increased 18 percent between fiscal 2011 and 2016, while the prison population declined by almost 3,000 inmates, or 12 percent. Researchers said increased spending was focused on raises and new hires for correctional officers, not on programs designed to rehabilitate prisoners and inmates.
When the Senate approved its version of the bill on June 1, it added a section requiring a report on correction spending. The House promptly rejected that amendment, agreeing to the rest of the bill and sending it back to the Senate, where the bill has been pending for the past week.
The Senate amendment would require the Baker administration to issue a report by Jan. 1, 2018, detailing inmate population, costs per inmate, expenses on payroll, and expenses on programming for recidivism reduction, including case management, reentry support, behavioral health counseling and education.
Senators are seeking data covering the previous five fiscal years and projected data for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, as well as recommendations “to increase the percentage of spending on evidence-based recidivism reduction programming.“
Criminal justice reform proponents are pressing this session to advance a bill reducing the state’s prison population, improving anti-recidivism programs and making it easier for ex-offenders to successfully reenter society after completing criminal sentences. Consensus has not formed around such a bill.
Due to weak growth in tax collections and underfunding of accounts by the Legislature, the Baker administration this year has been trying to hold down spending while refusing to specify measures they are taking to do so or programs and initiatives affected by spending restrictions.
