State prisons to be $15 million short this year

Prison Commissioner Richard Allen said he needs $15 million just to make it through the current fiscal year, which started in October.
"We are $15 million short with no way for me to affect it without closing prisons or laying off, which no one wants me to do," he told legislators on Tuesday during a budget hearing.
Allen and other agency heads are submitting their budget requests this week to state lawmakers.
He requested a budget of $475 million for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2010.
The corrections budget request would include $439.2 million from the General Fund.
The Legislative Fiscal Office expects a more than $600 million hole in the General Fund budget, which is the source of the majority of funding for state prisons, Medicaid, state troopers and most other non-education functions.
Lawmakers are concerned about how they will replace the $118.5 million in federal stimulus funds that are being used this year to hold up the corrections department.

-- posted by Sebastian Kitchen