UPDATED: Prison privatization clears state House panel

TALLAHASSEE — A House panel cleared its chamber's version of a South Florida prison privatization plan on Tuesday with a party line vote.

The Justice Appropriations Subcommittee passed the bill (PCB 12-05) by a vote of 10-5. A Senate committee approved its version on Monday.

The Republican proponents of the plan said prison privatization guarantees savings to state government that can be put toward education and public health. Estimates show those savings at $22-45 million a year.

A deal with a private prison company won't be made if savings can't be shown in advance, said Rep. Charles McBurney, a Jacksonville Republican and vice-chair of the panel.

He paraphrased a line from Jack Nicholson's character in "The Departed" to explain: "No savings, no contract." The House bill requires at least 7 percent savings. It also excludes the South Florida Reception Center, where inmates are classified by security risk.

Democratic lawmakers and correctional workers still oppose the idea, saying the plan will put state employees out of work and reduce public and prisoner safety.

Rep. Cynthia A. Stafford, a Miami Democrat, said she worried that private companies would "cherry pick" younger, healthier inmates who are less expensive to house.

That would leave "the sickest, the toughest, the worst inmates for the state to deal with, and that's not fair," she said.

Last year, the Legislature passed a South Florida prison-privatization plan. But the state was sued by the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union that formerly represented corrections officers. A judge ruled the plan was unconstitutional because it was approved as part of the annual budget and not as a separate law. Attorney General Pam Bondi is appealing the judge's decision.

This month, the Department of Corrections said it was closing seven state prisons and four work camps, all of which employ nearly 1,300 people, because of a decreasing prison population. Those facilities are specifically excluded from the House bill.

The bill also excludes prison health services, requires a yearly audit and performance standards and gives former state corrections workers first crack at jobs in newly privatized facilities.

A representative from the Teamsters, which now represent corrections officers in the state, told the committee he worked at the Hernando County Jail when it went through its own privatization experiment. Because another worker mentioned he had spare keys to the jail "back at his house," officials had to replace all the locks at a cost of $245,000, Dan Oliver said.

Robert Weissert, a researcher for the business-aligned Florida TaxWatch, said he studied what he called "public/private partnerships." Weissert told the panel they could reap a savings of 14 percent to 27 percent savings, if the plan is properly done.

"Running a government is not like running a company," Rep. Irv Slosberg, a Boca Raton Democrat, said in response to Weissert. Slosberg said that if a deal is no longer good for the state, taxpayers may be temporarily stuck until the contract runs out.

Both House and Senate bills will continue to work their way through other committees.

Below is an earlier version of this story:

TALLAHASSEE — A Florida House panel has cleared that chamber's version of a plan to privatize prisons in South Florida.

The Justice Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday passed by a 10-5 party-line vote a measure that would allow the privatizing of all prison facilities in the southern part of the state. A similar bill cleared a Senate committee the day before.

Democratic lawmakers and correctional workers continued their opposition to privatization. They say the plan will put state employees out of work and reduce public safety.

Proponents say the measures all but guarantee savings to state government that can be put toward education and public health.

A similar privatization attempt last year was shot down by a judge who said it was unconstitutional. This year's bills fix the legal problems.