By Karen Langley
Concord Monitor
CONCORD, N.H. — The Berlin prison would stay open but a unit of the Concord prison could close under directions Senate budget writers gave to top state prison officials yesterday.
After listening to an explanation of the state corrections budget, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Morse told department Commissioner William Wrenn to set aside his claim that he could only meet a proposed budget reduction by closing the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin. Morse, a Republican from Salem, said he had examined the financial figures for the Berlin prison and did not believe the facility could be made more efficient, even by contracting services to a private company.
“Berlin’s a nonstarter,” Morse said. “If we can work together to stop talking about Berlin, that would be great, and we’ll move forward.”
Instead, Morse asked Wrenn to consider whether money could be saved by closing a housing unit in the Concord prison. That prison, the state’s largest, houses 1,350 male prisoners, most of whom live in one of three main housing units.
Department officials will weigh whether closing one of the housing units would save enough in personnel costs to outweigh the expense of sending the inmates to a private facility out of state, Wrenn said after the meeting. Officials have received information from private companies that provide corrections services.
But Wrenn said closing a Concord housing unit might not yield savings. Asked where else his department could cut its budget, Wrenn said he does not know.
“If they don’t want to shut down the Berlin facility, they still have to restore money to me somehow,” Wrenn said.
Last month, the House passed a budget that cuts $5.9 million from the governor’s proposal for corrections funding. Wrenn told lawmakers the cut would eliminate 45 jobs. He said such a reduction in workers would force him to close the Berlin prison, which employs 185 workers, and send its 620 inmates out of state.
The Department of Corrections was the only major state agency to see its funding increase in the budget proposed by Gov. John Lynch. The department is budgeted at $106 million this year, with $102 million coming from the state general fund. Lynch recommended a budget of $112 million next year and $113 million in 2013, saying he did not like the increase but considered it a “necessary investment in public safety.”
Morse has said the limits of the current budget will not allow the state to increase corrections spending. He told reporters earlier this week that senators will devise a plan for a better way to deliver correctional services. They will use those savings to restore funding the House had cut for services for people with disabilities, he said.
Morse has said senators will “live within our means” and craft a budget without new taxes or other revenue sources. Budget writers are also looking to restore funding for uncompensated care payments to hospitals and state retiree health care, but only to the extent they can make cuts elsewhere.
Wrenn told the Senate committee yesterday that personnel costs account for about 70 percent of his department’s expenses. Since June 2007, layoffs and budget reductions have shrunk the department’s workforce from 1,090 to 874 funded positions. Wrenn said department officials are pressing to reduce overtime hours but are challenged by the deployment of workers on military duty. Recently, he said, 19 department employees were deployed at one time.
Wrenn told the senators that the new mandatory early release law would take several years to show significant savings. As the prison population drops, officials will first look to move inmates from unsecured units, like a converted gymnasium in the Berlin prison, to cells and other secure housing.
In addition to the 45 jobs Wrenn says the budget would eliminate, the House also targeted five specific positions, including the department’s public information officer and a contract specialist. Morse said yesterday that he did not know how the department would do without those positions and said the committee wants to work with Wrenn to find another option.
Copyright 2011 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor