Scott has a long way to go toward $1 billion in prison cuts

Among all of Rick Scott's campaign promises, perhaps the most contested as being unrealistic was a pledge to cut $1 billion out of the state prisons budget.

Why?

Because the budget was only $2.39 billion to start with.

Scott cited three ways to cut the corrections budget by more than 40 percent in his campaign booklet:

• Pay competitive market-based salaries for Department of Corrections staff;
• Utilize inmate labor to grow prison food;
• Competitively bid health care contracts

We are monitoring each of those promises here, here and here. In this case, we're looking at the larger promise to shrink the state prison budget by $1 billion.

On the dollar figure, Scott appears to have a long way to go.

In his 2011-12 budget proposal, Scott called for cuts of $135 million from the agency's $2.393 billion budget by dismissing 1,700 employees, cutting warden pay by 5 percent and sending up to 1,500 inmates into private, for-profit facilities, among other ideas.

What the actual corrections budget and cuts were for 2011-12 depends on whom you ask. According to the budget Scott signed into law, the corrections budget was $2.277 billion (a reduction of about $123 million). According to Scott, the approved budget was $2.188 billion (a reduction of around $212 million). According to the Department of Corrections, the final figure was $2.116 billion (a decrease of $284 million).

Whatever the actual cut was -- as much as we find it kind of scary to have a difference of opinion totaling $161 million -- Scott has proposed to shrink the corrections budget further in 2012-13 to $2.085 billion. The bulk of the cuts would come from transferring inmates in underpopulated prisons into other facilities and then closing under-used lockups. By 2014, officials say Florida's prison beds will outnumber prisoners by roughly 16,000 (page 11 of budget presentation).

So, if Scott gets his way -- and if the bean counters can agree on what the actual budget number is -- the governor will have cut somewhere around $308 million out of the state prison budget. That's far short of Scott's goal even without considering that much of the savings is thanks to a smaller prison population and not state policy shifts.

We asked Scott's press office to weigh in on how this promise is going. Instead of addressing the methods by which Scott said he would reduce the state prison budget, his press office claimed the $1 billion promise applied to not only the Department of Corrections but also the Department of Juvenile Justice, where he wants to reduce excessive beds.

But that's what Scott pledged in statements by Scott and his campaign press team.

In an interview with PolitiFact Florida last year, Scott's campaign spokesman Joe Kildea said, "There are other states that have lower prison budget costs than Florida, because they have some less expensive facilities and have lower recidivism rates. One billion dollars represents the gap between Florida's and Texas' costs, and is an example of where the accountability budgeting process will begin, but is not a final budget plan."

People scoffed at Scott's assertion he could trim the prison budget by $1 billion. So far, those critics seem to have a point. Scott has a little time to rescue this promise but for now we find it Stalled.