Senate budget committee chairman refuses to cut correctional officers

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to overhaul Florida’s prison system, in part by firing hundreds of correctional officers, hit a wall of resistance Thursday.

The chairman of the Senate budget committee that oversees prisons, Republican Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey, declared the idea “dead on arrival,” as he clashed with John Thrasher, a powerful colleague who endorsed the proposal.

Scott’s plan would save $135 million by firing 1,700 employees, increasing probation officers’ caseloads, cutting wardens’ pay by 5 percent and shifting up to 1,500 inmates from state-run prisons to private, for-profit lockups, which are required to operate at 7 percent less cost than state prisons.

The governor wants to use the savings to expand drug treatment, mental health, literacy and re-entry programs for inmates so they will be less likely to commit new crimes and return to prison.

Fasano expressed shock when Scott budget aide Bonnie Rogers defended putting more inmates in private prisons, so as to save $2.8 million by dismissing 619 prison guards, even though state prisons have thousands of unused beds.

“What the governor wants to do is put 619 families on the unemployment line so we can move prisoners from the public sector to the private sector,” Fasano said.

Rogers, former chief of staff in the Department of Corrections, said the seven private prisons can reconfigure their space to house up to 1,500 more inmates. The private prisons are paid per inmate housed — meaning potentially more profit for the private firms.

Fasano and Thrasher, former chair of the Republican Party of Florida, had an ugly exchange after Fasano badgered the prison system’s new No. 2 official, Dan Ronay, for not controlling overtime, even though he has been on the job four days.

A scathing audit of prison overtime costs said 25 medical workers collected $2 million in overtime last year — the equivalent of $90,000 per worker.

Ronay called that “atrocious,” but that did not placate Fasano, who as committee chairman dominated the questioning and continued to hammer away.

“That is not fair to him,” Thrasher told Fasano. Then Thrasher sought to pin the blame for prison woes on former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Fasano ally whom Thrasher actively opposed last fall after Crist bolted from the Republican Party.

When Thrasher mentioned “a governor who left us who ran for something else,” Fasano cut him off abruptly.

“Oh, Sen. Thrasher, we’re not going to get into politics today,” Fasano said.

“We’re not playing politics,” Thrasher said.

Democratic Sen. Arthenia Joyner of Tampa faulted Scott’s team for advocating the shutdown of a juvenile detention center in eastern Hillsborough County to save money. Rogers sought to mollify Joyner, saying: “It was certainly not a target to your district.”

PBA lobbyist Ken Kopczynski praised Fasano for grilling Scott’s team. “I think he held their feet to the fire,” he said.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos, asked whether Fasano can single-handedly thwart a major part of Scott’s agenda, said: “If he can sway 21 members that something is a bad idea, then he’ll get his agenda done,” Haridopolos said.

Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.

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