Pa. Trims Corrections Costs by Relocating Inmates in Need of Radiation Treatment
Savings are relatively small compared to overall state corrections spending.
By temporarily relocating inmates in need of radiation treatment to a single prison facility, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office said Monday that Pennsylvania was able to shave about a half-million dollars off of its corrections spending, which currently totals upwards of $2 billion annually.
The state’s Department of Corrections last year began consolidating people requiring radiation therapy at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset. In doing so, the department says it cut down costs incurred by moving people from facility-to-facility in order to provide the treatment.
“This consolidation of inmates uses DOC resources, specifically transportation officers and vehicles, more efficiently,” Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said in a statement Monday.
Wetzel said that over the course of a year the state realized $528,600 in net savings by getting inmates in need of the cancer treatment under one roof.
That amount is about 0.02 percent of the overall Department of Corrections budget, which totals around $2.2 billion for the fiscal year that will end on June 30. For that time period, the corrections department has roughly $258 million allocated for medical care.
Between April 2015 and last month, 491 inmates at Somerset have received radiation treatment. Those requiring the therapy are transferred to the prison from other correctional facilities around the state and are treated on an outpatient basis at a local hospital.
Some trips to get inmates to medical facilities where they could receive radiation treatment had previously averaged over four hours, according to the governor’s office.
The prison at Somerset was operating in excess of its bed capacity of 2,203 late last month by a margin of 201. The total inmate population there was 2,404 as of April 30, according to the Department of Corrections’ most recent month-end population report.
Relocating the prisoners needing radiation treatment is tied to a broader push by Wolf’s administration, which is aimed at saving $150 million across state government during the current fiscal year.
A stalemate over this year’s state budget dragged on for nearly nine months between Wolf, a Democrat, and Republicans in the state’s General Assembly, before finally ending in March.
The governor has argued that significant action will be required going forward to address a $2 billion deficit in the upcoming budget cycle.
Bill Lucia is a Reporter at Government Executive's Route Fifty.
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