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- The 2012-13 Budget: Realignment of Adult Offenders & CDCR after Realignment
- The 2012-13 Budget: Completing Juvenile Justice Realignment
- Governor's Proposed 2012 Budget Plan and Full Budget Summary
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LEGISLATIVE CORNER
The 2012-13 Budget: Realignment of Adult Offenders & CDCR after RealignmentPosted: February 24, 2012
The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) recently released two reports providing an update on the status of realignment.
The 2012-13 Budget: Refocusing CDCR AfterThe 2011 Realignment
The 2011 Realignment of Adult Offenders—An Update
The first focuses primarily on realignment's impact on local governments, reviews the Governor's proposed changes and makes recommendations to encourage realignment's long-term success. The second report focuses on realignment's impact on the overall population at CDCR and how those inmates are manages both within CDCR and on parole.
Some of the LAO recommendations included in the report are:
- The Governor's proposed realignment funding account structure should be modified by adding a reserve fund into which all unallocated revenue growth could be deposited. Counties would be able to oversee these resources to appropriately match their needs while still complying with federal requirements where relevant.
- An allocation formula should be created for the funds dedicated to the realignment of adult offenders throughout the state. This formula would be responsive to changes in counties and crime-related factors, specifically at-risk population ages 18 through 35 and felony dispositions.
- Reject the Governor's proposal to give counties a second year of $8.9 million in funding for CCP planning and training, since counties will have hundreds of millions of dollars more in realignment funds from which to draw.
- The Brown Administration should begin to utilize the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), which was created to provide technical assistance to counties and to promote local accountability.
Other findings by the LAO include:
- 47 of the state’s 58 counties have completed a CCP as required by law. While there is considerable variation in the strategies counties plan on employing, on average these plans allocated spending in the following ways
- 38 percent to the sheriff’s department, primarily for jail operations;
- 32 percent to the probation department, primarily for supervision and programs;
- 11 percent for programs and services provided by other agencies, such as for substance abuse and mental health treatment, housing assistance, and employment services;
- 9 percent for other services, including district attorney and public defender costs;
- 10 percent set aside in reserve or undesignated (reduced to 2 percent if San Diego, which set aside more than half of its allocation, is excluded).
- LAO is concerned that the BSCC does not have well-defined responsibilities and that the formula for a state grant for county probation departments has not been updated to account for realignment.
- SB 678, counties currently receive funding based on their success in reducing the percentage of probationers sent to state prison compared to a county-specific baseline percentage of probationers they sent to prison between 2006 and 2008. The LAO points out that the realignment of adult offenders from the state to counties will affect some of the same offenders captured by the SB 678 formula. Without statutory changes, therefore, theSB 678 formula could effectively provide counties funding a second time for offenders already funded through realignment. Chapter 12, Statutes of 2011 (ABX1 17, Blumenfield), directs the Department of Finance in consultation with the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Chief Probation Officers of California, and CDCR to revise the formula to account for this. The administration has not yet proposed a revised formula, but have indicated they are working on a proposal to implement the necessary changes.
- The existing Corrections Standards Authority (CSA) has a quarterly jail survey they conduct of counties. This could be expanded to include probation department caseloads, as well as to include a few key outcome measures, such as successful discharges from community supervision and recidivism rates.
The second report covers inmate housing, fire camps, inmate medical and mental health care, as well as rehabilitation programs. The LAO believes that CDCR is not delivering rehabilitation programs for inmates and parolees as effectively as possible. Since realignment will likely change the mix of programs needed, the LAO recommends that the Legislature not approve the Governor's proposed restoration of the current-year, one-time reduction of $101 million to rehabilitation programs until CDCR has presented a plan for modification of its programs.
Additional details can be found in the attached LAO reports.
Kate Bell Alves, Lobbyist
Capitol Advocacy
The 2012-13 Budget: Refocusing CDCR AfterThe 2011 Realignment
The 2011 Realignment of Adult Offenders—An Update