Arizona Private Prison Funding: Rep Kavanagh Clears the airPosted: 2014-04-04 3-30-14 Arizona Freedom Alliance
The Arizona Justice Alliance is a far left "social justice" group that wants to release many prisoners from our state prisons, many of whom are violent and dangerous. They also hate private prisons, in spite of the fact that they save the taxpayers money.
The $900,000 is a small increase to a private prison company who dramatically cut the per prisoner rate it charged Arizona during the recession. Because the economy is coming back, they asked for a small increase, which still keeps their rate below market value.
Here is an email from the company explaining their position and the facts:
In an article that appeared in Saturday’s paper, the Arizona Republic inaccurately highlighted a $900,000 appropriation in the Private Prison Per Diem line item in the House version of the Department of Correction’s budget. This article is misleading in its mischaracterization of this item.
During the Great Recession, the GEO Group voluntarily reduced the cost of emergency beds in its contracts from an average of about $30.00 per inmate per day, down to $10.00 to help the State in the budget crisis. The GEO Group was the only private prison operator to reduce their rates. At full occupancy of these emergency beds, the savings to the State are about $3.7 million annually.
The GEO Group was happy to help the State, they are partners in serving the needs of the Arizona Department off Corrections. Emergency beds make up slightly more that 26% of the beds that GEO manages for the State, making this significant in terms of total State savings, and to the GEO Group’s bottom line.
The $900,000 private prison appropriation represents only a small portion of restoration of the emergency bed per diems. The State’s budget is still tight and GEO recognizes that full restoration is not possible this year. We appreciate the legislature’s recognition of the GEO Group’s efforts to assist the State when it needed help, and thank you for your support of this modest restoration.
One additional point of clarification to the Republic's article: Private prison contracts with the State are 20-year contracts. They include a provision for CPI increases to be made for private prison operators. Without direct funding to the Department of Corrections, these CPI or any other adjustments, cannot be made. The GEO Group has not only foregone any CPI increases since 2007, they reduced their rates to help their partner.
Hope that that clears up the misinformation in the Arizona Republic article.
Here is the article in azcentral,com being referenced
http://arizonafreedomalliance.ning.com/group/azlegislation/forum/topic/show?id=6399857%3ATopic%3A45963&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic
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