Gov. Crist Tells APD to cut Another 10%

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Cuts Hit Agencies Hard

By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

cdolinski@...

Published: October 19, 2008TALLAHASSEE - From child protection to prisons, no state service is immune from potentially draconian funding cuts next year, as the state struggles to fill a budget hole as large as $3.5 billion.Every year, state agencies must create plans for cutting their budgets by 10 percent, if needed. Last year, the results laid the groundwork for the roughly $6 billion that lawmakers carved out of spending. Those existing cuts made it harder for agencies to propose another 10 percent reduction for 2009-10. Among possibilities reluctantly identified last week:•Agency for Persons With Disabilities - $1.7 million cut from support services for the developmentally disabled and their families.This reduction targets a Home and Community-Based Services program, in which about 5,000 people have appealed cuts to their services already this year, and for which there remains a waiting list of more than 17,000. Affected services would range from supported employment to transportation to respite care.•Department of Education - $1.18 million cut from research and patient care at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center.•Department of Corrections - $178 million saved by allowing prisoners to earn their way out early, despite bad behavior. Currently, prisoners who meet criteria for good behavior can cut their time by up to 15 percent. But they forfeit that 'gain time' permanently when they behave badly. Allowing them to earn it back would free up space to forgo building two prisons.The Department of Corrections is running a $145 million deficit this year due to rising costs atop existing budget cuts. Last year, legislative cuts included $9.3 million to prison food, $8.8 million to inmate education and $14.9 million in parole officer staffing.'We are on life-support now,' Corrections spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff said. 'Though our budget has not grown, the population of inmates and those on probation continues to spiral upward.'•Department of Children & Families - $3.1 million cut from child protection investigators at DCF and sheriff's offices.The reduction would follow more than $4 million cut from child protection investigators over the last year, said Jaacks, DCF assistant secretary for administration. With existing cuts, caseload ratios are 1-to-15, above the 1-12 ratio recommended by the Child Welfare League. 'The more cases you have, the less attention you can pay to each case and the more likely a problem might go unnoticed or unfound, and a child might be hurt,' Jaacks said.DCF proposes a nearly $47 million cut to hospital beds for mentally ill offenders. The cut, which DCF listed as a last resort to reach the 10 percent goal, would reduce beds by 30 percent - potentially re-creating the crisis of 2006, when offenders, incompetent to stand trial, were jailed for months despite a legal right to treatment within 15 days.Sterling Ivey, spokesman for Gov. Charlie Crist, said a full 10 percent reduction for all agencies is not likely.

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