Louisiana prison officials recently were asking the state for more money. Repairs to the aging system, low guard pay and increasing costs of running the facilities were on the table.
One interesting fact came out concerning how much they spend on healthcare on prisoners.
The Edwards administration request for the budget year that ends June 30 seeks more than $18 million for the Department of Corrections to fill budget holes and nearly $16 million to pay parish sheriffs for housing state inmates in their local jails. Lawmakers will consider whether to cover the costs in the legislative session that begins March 9.
Thomas Bickham, the chief financial officer for the Department of Corrections, said this year’s $592 million budget for the agency didn’t include enough money to cover the overtime costs of the department, pharmaceutical costs for inmates or repairs to prison facilities.
“We have one individual in our system that costs us $3.7 million a year in pharmaceutical costs. That’s just eating us up right now,” Bickham said. “We (were given) zero dollars in major repairs and acquisitions, and sometimes we just have to fix things.”
Source: Washington Times
