Montgomery, AL – Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen says a plan that began last July to help the department wipe out much of a $30 million budget shortfall has produced results, generating all but about $3 million of the deficit.
But the prospects for yet another funding crisis looms in fiscal 2009, which starts October 1st. A shortage of corrections officers and inmate overcrowding remain a serious problem.
Allen wishes his initiatives - cutting back on overtime, charging state agencies for inmate labor, relocating inmates, shutting down money-losing farm and industry operations as well as selling land - could move along faster.
The $343.3 million approved for the corrections department's 2008 fiscal year, is below the $370 million sought by Allen.
Governor Riley and Allen have called for offsetting the deficit in a variety of ways, including canceling contracts to house 1,300 state inmates in Louisiana and generating more money by increasing the number of inmates participating in work release programs.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)