Idaho lawmakers balk at price tag for proposed drug treatment facility
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 11:08 AM PST
BOISE — Lawmakers worried about Idaho’s flagging economy balked Tuesday at spending $4.8 million on a plan by Gov. C.L. ‘‘Butch’’ Otter to turn a prison warehouse south of Boise into a drug-treatment facility. Otter wants to convert the Idaho Correctional Center building that has provided space for prison industries into a therapy center with classrooms and beds for 304 drug-addicted inmates. But the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee opted to hold off on the so-called ‘‘Prison Industry Enhancement,’’ or PIE, conversion, at least until its members have more information on projected state tax revenue. At January’s end, tax revenue was $1.6 billion, or $36 million behind forecasts for the current fiscal year, state economists said last week. That has lawmakers who oversee the budget wary of supporting fiscal year 2009 programs, especially if they require future spending. Otter’s proposed prison conversion is projected to include up to $1.7 million in ongoing annual costs.
‘‘This is not taking the PIE conversion off the books forever, but we do want to see revenue projections,’’ said Rep. Darrell Bolz, R-Caldwell.
Wayne Hammon, the governor’s budget chief, said he likely will provide updated tax revenue projections to the budget writers on Thursday.
Hammon said his presentation will include reasons for funding the prison project, as well as paying for the governor’s $78 million plan to raise state employee salaries by 5 percent while cutting their medical benefits, and spending $20 million to analyze aquifers across Idaho, an effort meant to help manage the state’s water. All three items remain among Otter’s top priorities, even if revenue for the year starting next July is projected to stumble.
‘‘There most likely won’t be money for everything in the governor’s budget,’’ conceded Hammon. Budget writers on Tuesday did sign off on a plan to cover some $2.2 million related to the 500 inmates sent by the Department of Correction to Texas and Oklahoma prisons, by using money the agency received but hasn’t spent in the current fiscal year.
