{"id":30908,"date":"2018-10-31T13:13:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=30908"},"modified":"2018-10-31T17:32:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T22:32:17","slug":"expensive-problems-prompt-1-billion-budget-request-from-prisons-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2018\/10\/31\/expensive-problems-prompt-1-billion-budget-request-from-prisons-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Expensive problems prompt $1 billion budget request from prisons agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is asking lawmakers for $1.57 billion in funding for next year, a budget request anchored by money for new prison beds and medicine for hepatitis C.<\/p><p>The agency\u2019s supervisory board on Oct. 30 unanimously approved the budget request for lawmakers to consider during the 2019 legislative session.<\/p><p>Prison population growth is driving the most expensive item on the agency\u2019s list: $884 million in accommodations for about 5,000 inmates. The additional space for new inmates and those in temporary beds or housed at county jails would require the construction of a new medium-security prison.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p>The second most expensive item: $91,665,821 to treat 3,107 inmates suspected of having hepatitis C.<\/p><p>Agency officials also requested funding for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$31,913,879 for building maintenance<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>$18,489,805 for staff raises<\/li>\n<li>$8,865,211 for technology and security upgrades<\/li>\n<li>$7,187,361 for debt payments<\/li>\n<\/ul><p>This is the third year in a row the agency asked lawmakers for more than $1 billion in funding.<\/p><p>The Legislature allowed the agency to borrow money for some building needs this year, but in the last two years, lawmakers gave the corrections agency <a href=\"http:\/\/doc.ok.gov\/odoc-2019-budget-request-unveiled-includes-staff-raises-2-medium-security-prisons-expanded-programs\">about a third of the funding its leaders asked for.<\/a><\/p><p>Corrections officials requested more than $1.5 billion during the 2018 legislative session and received about $517 million in appropriations. In 2017, the agency requested more than $1.6 billion and received about $485 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the third year in a row the Department of Corrections has asked lawmakers for more than $1 billion in funding. Lawmakers&#8217; last two appropriations  to the agency were much lower than the requested amounts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"page-noFeature.php","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[984,890],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30908"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30924,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30908\/revisions\/30924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}