The state Budget and Control Board on Monday met with S.C. Department of Corrections Director Jon Ozmint about his agency’s burgeoning annual deficit, which has grown from a few million dollars three years ago to nearly $30 million this fiscal year.

Board members, who oversee much of the state’s financial doings, voted to allow Corrections to continue to carry its $29 million deficit. One member, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman (R-Florence) suggested that Ozmint should look into the early release of 3,000 inmates.

Leatherman, referring to non-violent and first-time offenders, went on to ask if Ozmint would place those 3,000 in a supervised furlough program. Ozmint declined to do so saying he needed specific state legislation before he did this, according to Corrections spokesman Josh Gelinas.

Legislators say Ozmint has authority for early release

Several legislators, including Senate Corrections and Penology Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Fair (R-Greenville), have since come forward to say that Ozmint does, in fact, already have the authority to do early releases.

Leatherman’s suggestion hearkens back to budget fights in past years when a similar request was made. Each time a powerful senator has asked about early releases, Ozmint has declined, apparently more intent on fulfilling his duty as the state’s top jailer than on helping legislators in their attempts to be frugal.

Two years ago, Ozmint staked out his position on early release after being asked to create a list of options his agency could employ in handling an across-the-board 10-percent budget cut.

In that response, Ozmint laid out a plan that would essentially move up the release date of every inmate by one to six months, regardless of crime category. That would mean convicted killers and rapists would have seen their sentences accelerated at the same rate as non-violent drug possessors.

Ozmint took pains repeatedly in that report, which echoed in the halls of the Statehouse this week, to emphasize that he did not support the notion of early release. Because Ozmint again dug in his heels this week, state leaders are in a tough political situation.  

Tight budget causes problems

Money is incredibly tight this year in the state’s General Fund budget -- so tight that some have complained that the projected budget would return state K-12 education funding levels to that of 15 years ago.

The situation at Corrections is tough enough. Like public education, prison systems’ budgets are largely dedicated to salaries. Mid-year budget cuts, which have come aplenty the last few years in South Carolina state government, hit Education and Corrections arguably harder because both are less program-centric than some agencies.

“To save money, we would have to shed employees, and if we have to shed employees, we would have to close prisons,” Gelinas said this week.

In the past two years, Corrections has said that to make its books balance it would have to close upward of five prison facilities, mothballing them until money was available to reopen them.

Currently, Corrections maintains 28 facilities, has an average daily population of just over 24,000 inmates, has close to 6,000 employees, but is nearly 500 workers short of its full-time allocation, according to House Ways and Means documents. Additionally, the agency’s current annual budget of $397 million is a mere $2.5 million more than it was three years ago.

Well-timed request by Leatherman

Leatherman’s early release request seemed to be well timed. A crime bill passed the House this week, sentencing reform efforts have been drawing bipartisan support, and the state could use any spare dollar.

S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, running for governor, has pushed the idea of creating a “middle court” and redirecting more first-time and drug-related criminals away from costly prison beds and into money-saving diversionary programs.

Additionally, an omnibus sentencing reform bill has come out of a bipartisan panel chaired by Sen. Gerald Malloy (R-Darlington) that would change how many offenses are punished, reserving prison beds for more dangerous criminals.

Fair, the senator who heads the Corrections committee, said that Ozmint taking the “nuclear option” of early release for all or for none at all, has meant that state politicians could be forced into “making a decision that no politician wants to make: whether to release prisoners.”

Tough policy choice

Heightening the tough decision would be the probable reality that early release wouldn’t become a one-time policy, but would likely grow into an ongoing situation as the state is expected to struggle to balance its books and spending for years to come.

Fair said  while he didn’t agree with Ozmint’s stance, he said it coincided with voter sentiment. “Prison is precisely where they (voters) want those people until they have exhausted” their “debt to society,” said Fair.

As a result, Fair said he thought it would take “nothing short of a court order for Ozmint to agree to early release. He would double up cells, put inmate on gymnasium floors -- anything to press the envelope rather than [succumb] to early release.”

Fair said the timing on sentencing reform is probably bad for this session.

“With the House taking furloughs all over the place, and the Senate planning an extended Easter vacation, I don’t think there’s enough time,” said Fair, one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “It’s a big issue and I think there will be need for serious discussion that’s just not in this year’s calendar.”

Crystal ball: Prisoners aren’t going to be going anywhere. With the Budget and Control Board voting this week to allow Corrections to continue running its massive deficit, there will be little push from within for early release. And this year’s House elections in November means early release probably won’t have big champions in the House because politicians know to stay “tough on crime” if they want to keep their seats. Next year may be a different story, as the state continues to slog through dismal budgets. But, if the economy has rebounded, and state coffers will be fuller in coming years, the bigger question may soon become whether sentencing reform, which received a push from the depressed economy, will survive.

Tort reform is slated to be debated on the House floor next week, as is House Speaker Bobby Harrell’s economic development act. Several bills have passed through committees and could be debated soon after, including a new charter school bill.

In the Senate, a bill that would keep unionization votes secret, which is being touted as a way to keep employees free from union intimidation, will receive one or two days on the floor, depending on Democratic opposition. Also on the agenda:

• Mega-mall. A tax break bill that would help developers build a mega-mall in Jasper County will hit the floor thereafter with two GOP senators -- Tom Davis of Beaufort and Greg Ryberg of Aiken -- expected to attack it vigorously.
  
  
• Anti-texting. A bill to ban texting while driving has cleared committee, but will likely see stiff opposition on the floor, due in part to concerns that banning all hand-held devices behind the wheel would be a serious detriment to CB-dependent truckers.
  
  
• Sentencing reform. The biggest legislative meeting on the calendar will likely be a Judiciary subcommittee meeting where a large sentencing reform bill will be discussed at 11 a.m. Wednesday in 406 Gressette. More.

From education to heath care, everything is on the chopping block in the state’s 2010-11 budget making its way to the House floor. Budget writers are struggling with tax revenue projections for the next year of about $5.1 billion, but with current General Fund baseline state spending over $5.3 billion.

Added to that, this will be the last year of the Obama federal stimulus money, about $350 million. Signs may be showing a state economy beginning to clamber out of its doldrums -- like a one-sixth jump in home sales -- but tax revenues lag spending. So, expect for peoples’ lives to get better over the next year -- unless they are dependent in any way on state programs or services.

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would allow for law enforcement to conduct warrantless searches of persons released from jail who are on probation or parole.

Supporters have said that police need to be able to more quickly act when it comes to “bad actors.” Critics have said the bill, whether it is approved in the Senate this year, will not pass constitutional muster.

State Sen. Gerald Malloy (D-Darlington), the chair of the Sentencing Reform Commission, has had his doubts about the efficacy of the bill, since, he said, the vast majority of prisoners chose to serve out their sentences instead of being under extended supervision once out on the streets.

ESC reform(ed)

The Senate passed its own Employment Security Commission reform bill this week, and altered a House version to more resemble its own plan.

The Senate plan calls for the beleaguered agency to be moved into the governor’s cabinet and the governor naming its executive director. The bills will now be sent to the House, where the main sticking point will be whether commissioners will be used to oversee some of the agency‘s decisions.

Harwell, who has more than 50 years of legal experience, said he looked forward to getting back into the courtroom and trying cases.  His new position also will allow him to do something else he's always desired -- practicing law with his youngest son, Baxter, an attorney with Bell Legal Group.

The House Ways and Means Committee this week approved a $5.1 billion budget recommendation that will be the focus of legislative debate starting March 8. Due to the tepid economy, state revenues aren’t robust. In fact, the budget is $5.1 billion – more than a billion less than just a couple of years back. What’s worse is that budget writers started out $98 million behind coming into this year because they have to make up an end-of-year shortfall from last year.

Unfortunately, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For 2010-11, there’s about $200 million in lower revenues because people are buying less, among other things. Additionally, budget writers have to find another $266 million to get balanced because they have to pay for required reserve funds, debt, homestead exemptions for seniors, employee health insurance increases, inflation and more. 

The proposed solution by the House Ways and Means Committee is relatively simple: Deep cuts, including $84 million to public K-12 education; $87 million to colleges; and $77 million for mental health and disability services. Most state agencies will suffer 15 percent to 20 percent cuts – and this is after recent tough years, layoffs and more.

It is clear to me that most scholars have limited understanding of real-world politicians, their practical political activities, and their positive political contributions to southern democracy. In fact, I’m convinced that the academic community’s theoretical capacity is handicapped by methodological and normative constraints against proper analysis of important aspects of Southern political history.  

The common vision of heroic drama

To the Editor:
 
State Rep. Rex Rice (R-Easley) introduced legislation to stop the health plan for state employees from covering abortions. His reason, in his words, is “In cases where a pregnancy was not planned by the parents, I still feel very strongly that God has a distinct plan and purpose for each and every life. Our tax dollars should not be responsible for interfering with that plan  and The state of South Carolina should not intervene on God’s missions.”

The state health plan, as any other health CARE plan, is by design, an interference in god's mission according to Rep. Rice:

• A health care plan pays for medicine that stops the spread of disease. Shall we also withhold all medications?
  
  
• It pays for doctors to intervene in life-threatening situations. I, for one, want the medical team to re-start my heart should I go into heart failure. I want the doctors on my team, not gods or angels or fairies.
  
  
• A health care plan pays for Caesarian sections ­in an emergency delivery; there’s a really good chance that the mother and the fetus could both die without human intervention. Shall we also withhold payment for this procedure?
  
  
• Does the state health care plan pay for Viagra? Because use of that medication is CLEARLY  interfering with God’s plan.

To paraphrase Rep Rice: In cases where a (cancer/heart disease/staph infection/etc) was not planned by the (parents/patient) does (Rep. Rice) feel very strongly that God has a distinct plan and purpose for each and every life? Our tax dollars should not be responsible for interfering with that plan  and The state of South Carolina should not intervene on God’s missions .”
 
If Rep. Rice feels we, the taxpayers, should not pay for health care plans, then he should work to abolish them entirely but not focus on removing one medical procedure.

-- Janet Segal, Charleston, S.C. 

2/19: Spending, taxing

To the editor:

[In reference to your 2/19 column on balanced budgeting,] Well if all businesses like SCANA up their fees it will help our economy also. Like Obama said. "WE CAN SPEND AND TAX OUR WAY OUT OF THIS RECESSION".

-- David Whetsell, Lexington, S.C.

Riley. President Barack Obama awarded Charleston Mayor Joe Riley the National Medal of Arts this week at the White House for his work in the arts and urban design.  More.

Trippin’.  A majority of South Carolinians polled recently said the recession did little to dampen their travel plans.  Now, this tourism-dependent state can only hope that sentiment spreads. More.

Real estate. January home sales were 15 percent higher than a year ago.  More.

Marriage. Gov. Mark Sanford and First Lady Jenny Sanford’s divorce may be over today after an 11 a.m. hearing.  More.

Transparency. A new report said state agencies did a bad job of recording use of state planes by state officials and that policies regarding when state officials fly better than coach class needed to be reviewed. Duh. More.