Prison layoffs, releases on the table
| Thursday, May 21 2009 05:04 PM
Last Updated Thursday, May 21 2009 05:05 PM
KERN'S STATE PRISON FOOTPRINT
California Correctional Institution (Tehachapi)
Total inmates: 5,196
Design capacity: 2,783
Staffed capacity: 5,732
Total staff (2007): 2003
Kern Valley State Prison (Delano)
Total inmates: 4,773
Design capacity: 2,448
Staffed capacity: 4,900
Total staff (2007): 1,619
North Kern State Prison (Delano)
Total inmates: 5,334
Design capacity: 2,694
Staffed capacity: 5,354
Total staff (2007): 1,557
Wasco State Prison
Total inmates: 5,972
Design capacity: 2,984
Staffed capacity: 5,920
Total staff (2007): 1,688
Note: Inmate populations are as of May 13.
Source: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
A cloud of uncertainty hangs over California's state prison system -- which has a big footprint locally -- and by association Kern County's Lerdo jail.
There's been serious talk of releasing prisoners to deal with overcrowding. Last week, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued thousands of layoff notices.
Then Tuesday, voters' resounding rejection of five state budget-mending propositions added another potential threat -- sentencing changes proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that could dump more future convicts into Lerdo, rather than into the state system.
That concept must survive the always-contentious state budget process before it becomes reality.
There is a lot at stake for Kern County with four state prisons the thousands of corrections officers they employ.
But firm answers about how many jobs may be at risk, how many prisoners might be released and what that might cost the county's economy are elusive now.
Here's what could impact Kern County's state prisons:
* The Department of Corrections has issued layoff notices to 3,665 employees statewide -- half of which are corrections officers. Since the layoff process will take four months and no layoff is guaranteed, there is no way of knowing how many jobs would be affected in Kern, said department spokesman Seth Unger.
There is some good news to counter that potential impact. Unger said 900 bed expansions at North Kern and Kern Valley state prisons near Delano are still moving forward. Those expansions -- which could happen in as soon as two years -- would bring 850 new jobs and around $86 million in annual payroll to Kern County.
* Various groups -- from a panel of three federal judges to Schwarzenegger -- have proposed reducing the population of state prisons -- which hover at around twice their designed capacity. Those prisoner releases could send thousands of convicts back into communities across the state.
Unger said there is a great deal of uncertainty about which, if any, of those reduction plans will be enacted or when such reductions would take place. Prisoners would be released to the county they lived in before imprisonment.
* Schwarzenegger's plan is to have "wobbler" convictions -- on crimes that can be either misdemeanors or felonies -- considered as misdemeanors. That would require the Legislature to rewrite the state penal code, Unger said.
If that happens, said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, he would have to find a way to house them in Lerdo Jail.
And that would be extremely difficult for his department as it considers serious staffing and facility cuts of its own.
"We could be closing one of our jails down because of the economy," Youngblood said. "Once we close that minimum facility it's closed forever because the state will never let us open the facility again. I don't know where we're going to put misdemeanor inmates."
