SC Corrections Director Says Millions Needed For Security

Columbia, SC—South Carolina Corrections director Jon Ozmint told a state House budget subcommittee Tuesday his agency needs millions of dollars to avoid a continuing deficit and to repair crumbling fences that could threaten public safety. “We had a fence blown over by 40-mile-an-hour winds last year, where the interior of the fence post had suffered so much rust that the wind literally blew the perimeter fence down,“ he said. Some of the razor wire at some prisons has become so brittle that it can be snapped in two by hand, he said.

He told House Ways and Means committee members Rep. Annette Young, R-Summerville, and Rep. Joe Neal, D-Hopkins, that the prison system needs about $36 million in next year’s budget to pay for its needs. For example, its budget currently allots 99 cents a day per inmate for food, while the agency is actually spending $1.47 per inmate per day, still the lowest in the nation.

His budget asks for $1.7 million for maintenance and $1 million for security. The security money would buy new guns, since the handguns the agency has now are so old that the manufacturer no longer makes replacement parts for them.

State lawmakers face three options in funding the prison system, each with its own drawbacks. One option is to fully fund Corrections, which would relieve problems at the agency and improve public safety. But with a tight state budget, spending more on prisons would leave less for schools, health care and other needs. A second option is to allow the agency to run a deficit, with the shortfall paid for at the end of the budget year using reserve funds. The problem with that is it would leave less money in the reserve fund for any unforeseen needs, like a possible hurricane.

The final option is to cut the Corrections budget. Ozmint says about 80 percent of his budget pays for employees, so the only way to cut the budget is to close some prisons by releasing inmates early and laying off employees. Doing that would require state lawmakers to pass an emergency powers act, which he doesn’t think they’ll do.