Corrections Avoids Taking The Shiv On Budget Cuts

By Kleinheider Posted on December 17, 2008 at 6:15 pm

WKRN reports that the Department of Corrections only have to cut 6% of their budget while other state department will have to trim 15%:

Despite that, he did not rule out that some offenders, who are incarcerated now or who face future sentencing, might not be in prison during the next fiscal year.

“At the end of the day, not only at the state level with our prisons but at the local level with our jails, I think we all will have to really take stock of who we have in our jails and our prisons and ask ourselves, ‘Are these the people that we want off the street to provide for the greatest measure of public safety?’

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Tags: budget cuts, Corrections  

Merry Christmas

By Kleinheider Posted on at 8:14 am

It’s time to cut the budget:

State agencies have until Dec. 30 to submit two-tiered plans detailing how they will cut an average of 14.58 percent from their base budgets in the upcoming 2009-2010 budget, according to a memo issued Tuesday by Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz.

Department heads and the budget office also have been ordered to prepare for possible 5 percent cuts on top of that. That would bring most departments’ base budget reductions to nearly 20 percent “if economic conditions continue to deteriorate,” Commissioner Goetz’s memo says.

Officials had little immediate comment on the memo, issued late Thursday afternoon.

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Tags: budget cuts, Dave Goetz, Phil Bredesen, slash and burn  

Cutbacks In The Warehouse

By Kleinheider Posted on December 4, 2008 at 10:19 am

Nashvillest on the effect of budget cuts on the prison system:

[W]e’re now beginning to see the effects of all the slicing and dicing, particularly in the Tennessee prison system which expects to lose around $50M or 8% of their budget. They’re not sure how they’re going to cope, but expect to rely more heavily on volunteers for rehabilitation programs and classes. Metro schools are also looking at a significant cut of $3M by the middle of the month to try and close in on the $11.1M deficit they’ve built up.

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Tags: budget cuts, prisons