Lawmakers Consider Cuts To Criminal Justice Resource Center Budget

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The budget of the state agency that analyzes Oklahoma's criminal justice system and tracks state incarceration rates could be cut in half by state lawmakers who are scrutinizing

Wednesday, August 15th 2007, 5:49 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The budget of the state agency that analyzes Oklahoma's criminal justice system and tracks state incarceration rates could be cut in half by state lawmakers who are scrutinizing the agency, officials said Wednesday.

A budget review at the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center comes three months after lawmakers rejected legislation that would have given them the authority to name its director in what critics said was an attempt to politicize the agency and fire executive director K.C. Moon.

In a statement, Senate co-President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, said spending reductions ``will likely need to be imposed'' on the agency to avert what Coffee said is ``a developing fiscal crisis at the agency, which is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more a year than incoming revenues.''

``The Criminal Justice Resource Center is spending money at an unsustainable rate that far exceeds its revenues,'' Coffee said. ``I believe legislative leaders are going have to enforce some fiscal discipline at the CJRC.''

The agency, the research arm of the Oklahoma Sentencing Commission, employs 22 people. It was appropriated $670,000 in the state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 and operates on a total of about $1.5 million, including federal grants and contracts with sheriffs and police departments it conducts studies for.

The head of the sentencing commission, Sen. Richard Lerblance, D-Hartshorne, said the agency has been asked to submit budget plans that reduce its state revenue by between 25% and 50%. Such cuts would erode its effectiveness as a nonpartisan, independent research agency for the Legislature, he said.

``How effective can they be?'' Lerblance said. ``If you hamstring them and don't give them the full staff, then they're not going to give you the information that you need.''

Analysis and statistics produced by the agency have shown a growing gap between the number of prison beds funded by the Legislature and the number of actual prisoners. The agency has said harsh sentences for drug crimes and other nonviolent offenses have driven Oklahoma's inmate population, which totaled 25,249 on Monday.

Some lawmakers have political differences with the agency's analysis, Lerblance said.

``Politics dictates that they don't like to hear that,'' he said.

Coffee said no final decision has been made about the agency's budget but that reductions would likely come by cutting areas such as out-of-state travel and administrative overhead.

He said legislative leaders have statutory responsibility to supervise the agency's budget.

``The silver lining in this situation is that it gives us an opportunity to create efficiency and cut some fat at a government agency, and that's great news for taxpayers,'' Coffee said.

The agency is also part of an ongoing independent performance review of the Department of Corrections.