By: Mevish Jaffer, contributing editorWith costs for fixing the state’s troubled corrections system at an ultimate high, California is getting ready to do something it’s never done before. There’s a first time for everything and now California understands that sentiment all too well, as for the first time, the state will allocate more funding on incarcerating inmates in prisons than on financing the education of students in its public universities.
It’s hard to believe that the state will be spending more on housing inmates; however current spending trends are showing us that California’s prison budget will supercede spending on the state’s universities in approximately five years. California will be the first state to do so, as no other big state in the U.S. exceeds spending on its prisons versus its universities. However, California concurs that an increasingly large amount of taxpayer money will be going towards its prisons due to continual failures in a system that the state is now attempting to alleviate.
Plans call for California to spend a total of $7.4 billion in order to build an estimated 40,000 new prison beds according to a new state law. This amount is far more than the state’s current annual operating budget. Additionally, of the billions of dollars of bonds that will be sold in order to fund the new construction, costs in just interest payments will amount to an estimated $330 million a year by 2011. All this money represents the total amount that will no longer be available for California’s higher education system, student loans, or other financial needs the state may have.
The May revisions of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s expense budget calls for the state to spend $10 billion on prisons in the fiscal year 2007-2008. This amount is a 9 percent increase from last year. As for higher education funding, the state will spend $12 billion which translates into just about a 6 percent increase. According to the legislative analyst, California student loans and higher education spending will continue to grow an estimated 5 percent per year versus costs for prisons, which will grow at a minimum of 9 percent per year.
Legislative analyst, Steve Boilard also stated the fact that the actual spending on California’s state university system is currently at level with spending on prisons. According to him, the budgets for the University of California, the California State University and the community colleges total to $10.5 billion in the fiscal year 2007-2008. The remaining budget for higher education includes financial aid as well as other funding programs for students who meet eligibility requirements.
