Nevada Governor Increases Prison Spending

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Nevada’s prison population has had years of slow growth, until recently. The state's prison population is expected to reach about 11,800 by fiscal 2007, approximately 12 percent more than the current total of 10,574.

Gov. Kenny Guinn's plan to spend $532.3 million in general and other funds on prisons in the upcoming two-year budget cycle, reflects a 20 percent increase over current system spending. The governor's state construction program includes $58.6 million for three housing units at High Desert State Prison in southern Nevada, with the first new beds coming online in the fall 2007.

Also included is a request for $1.8 million in planning funds to start design for what would be the state's eighth prison, likely in Southern Nevada. The facility would cost more than $100 million; construction funds would be sought in the 2007 legislative session.

Guinn seeks a 17 percent increase in the Department of Corrections general fund operating budget for the coming two years to $435 million to accommodate the rise in inmate population.

The budget proposes $20 million over the next two fiscal years to cover costs of opening the Southern Nevada Correctional Center. In the current budget, the agency is making money housing prisoners from Washington and Wyoming because beds were available to contract out to other states.

State Budget Director Perry Comeaux said the inmate population increase does not take into account the effects of any new police officers hired in Southern Nevada. The budget director said there are proposals that would increase the number of district court judges – and the impact that the new officers and judges would have on the prison system, by their arrests and sentencing, also wasn't factored into the inmate population growth estimates.

If those proposals are approved, “then somewhere down the road, unless some alternative steps are taken, our prison population will probably go through the roof,” Comeaux told a legislative budget review panel.