{"id":8335,"date":"2009-10-22T13:10:41","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T19:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=8335"},"modified":"2009-10-23T00:15:01","modified_gmt":"2009-10-23T06:15:01","slug":"corrections-department-already-cutting-its-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/10\/corrections-department-already-cutting-its-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Corrections Department already cutting budget"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Cuts the department has already implemented include moving inmates from private to state-owned prisons and feeding inmates less<\/h4>\n

State agencies are bracing for across-the-board spending cuts as lawmakers are working to plug this fiscal year’s budget shortfall of at least $650 million.<\/p>\n

One of those is the New Mexico Department of Corrections<\/a>, which already absorbed a $12.5 million cut<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Spokeswoman Tia Bland told NMPolitics.net the department is “ahead of the game” and has been planning for a 3.5 percent budget cut.<\/p>\n

“We have a plan in place to meet that goal,” Bland said.<\/p>\n

She listed several initiatives that have already been undertaken to reduce costs, including moving nearly 250 inmates from privately-contracted prisons to state owned and operated prisons — which will save an estimated $4.2 million during the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Approximately 250 inmates from the Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs and the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility in Santa Rosa — both privately operated by the GEO Group — have been moved into the state-operated Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Las Cruces and Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Grants.<\/p>\n

“Because our prison population has dropped and (we) are not currently overcrowded, we have the flexibility in our system to move inmates around,” Bland said.<\/p>\n

Bland also said the department was able to cut its food services contract by $310,000, or 5 percent, by cutting the number of calories inmates get each day.<\/p>\n

“We were able to do this by reducing the daily calorie count from 3,400 to 3,000 calories a day,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Corrections Department is also negotiating with Correctional Medical Services — its medical services contractor — to reduce costs. Bland indicated that the department has also cut contracts with vendors that provide treatment-type services to probation and parole offenders.<\/p>\n

“We have combed through all of our contracts for potential savings,” Bland said. “In some cases, we even eliminated some non-recurring contracts.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, House Republicans posted a list of 48 cost-saving measures<\/a> the administration could take. One of those suggestions was the the early release of non-violent offenders.<\/p>\n

But NMPolitics.net could not get a definition of what they meant by non-violent offenders, and the Corrections Department said releasing certain inmates up to three months early as the GOP lawmakers proposed “would not significantly impact the budget.”<\/p>\n

“To realize real budgetary savings, we would have to shut down prisons,” Bland said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spokeswoman says the department has been planning for a 3.5 percent decrease in its budget. Cuts the department has already implemented include moving inmates from private to state-owned prisons and feeding inmates less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[142,118,107],"class_list":["post-8335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-crime","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}