Botkin Testifies on Public Safety

Special Legislative Session

February 08 – 11, 2002

Oregon AFSCME Lead Political Coordinator Mary Botkin was invited by Gov. John Kitzhaber to testify on Feb. 14 regarding public safety, in relation to the state budget crisis.

Botkin was selected because AFSCME is recognized as THE union for all aspects of public safety in the state — Council 75 represents most state Department of Corrections employees, non-sworn employees of the Oregon State Police, some county sheriffs and city police officers around the state, adult and juvenile parole and probation officers at both the state and local level, state fire marshals, 9-1-1 operators and others.

Following is the text of Botkin's testimony to the governor:

Gov. Kitzhaber, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak before you today regarding the new budget proposals being considered.

For the record, my name is Mary Botkin and I am here today representing approximately 20,000 public employees and several thousand private sector employees working in a variety of areas of state and local government and non-profit organizations. Our members provide the services that the citizens of this state have learned to take for granted. We care for the sickest, poorest and most vulnerable citizens; we maintain the transportation, water and sewer infrastructures, our members run the courthouses, libraries and offices at every level of state and local government. Oregon works because we do!

Gov. Kitzhaber, we support your quest to find revenue options to assist in balancing the state budget. We agree with you and generally support a beer and wine tax increase, or a cigarette tax increase. But we need to make it clear that this will not balance the needs of this budget. In fact we are fearful that increasing these taxes it could make the entire situation worse — by giving the public the impression that the state always finds money in a pinch. As you are, so are we concerned that this could continue the current deception by hiding or masking the depth and seriousness of the fiscal crisis currently facing the State of Oregon.

AFSCME Council 75 is the largest public safety union in Oregon. From the moment a citizen picks up their phone and dials 9-1-1, they will talk with and be in partnership with our members — at one level or another. We were asked to address the public safety budget and what the proposed cuts mean to the general public.

The cuts being proposed to the Department of Corrections budget are just another round of under-funding our state prison system. The public safety budgets have not received cost-of-living increases in three bienniums — six years! We have been cutting all of these budgets since 1996; we did not experience growth in our budget equal to the growth in the economy or even with inflation. We have been living on a leaner and leaner budget cycle after cycle. The growth in the DOC budget has been due to construction of new facilities, not in additions to a stagnant department.

Last session we spent hundreds of hours with our members and the DOC management team to develop a budget that “flattened” the management/line staff ratios even more than they were. We cut or froze current vacancies and staff positions and other areas of the budget so that inmate programs, health care, education and services could be maintained. With the able assistance of the Legislative Fiscal staff we were able to “squeak” by.

The new additional cuts are significant and will have a dramatic impact on the manner in which our institutions and public safety programs function. When the public wakes up tomorrow they won’t see a dramatic change in their community safety — it will take longer to feel — but in time feel it they will!

• Cutting 150 Oregon Youth Authority beds and transferring nearly 200 18-year-olds to the state prison system is a serious deviation from current best practices. The state prison system does not focus on program and education services needed by youthful offenders for successful outcomes. The mixing of the two populations will make youthful offends more skillful in their criminal justice career. Additionally, these youthful offenders create a serious threat to the safety of our staff and create tension in the institutions over and above what is currently present. This policy does not create an environment for a good outcome. We don’t like it but we can live with this.

• This proposed budget delays the opening of a Medium Security Unit and Special Management Unit at the new Coffee Creek facility — our new women’s prison. This means housing women in a dormitory setting and continuing to house special needs women in other institutions. This runs into conflict with why Coffee Creek was built and opened. The sooner we can get all of our female inmates into one location the sooner we can begin to address the particular needs for programs and services that female offender face. We don’t like it but we can live with this too.

• The delay in opening a 48 bed Intensive Management Unit at Snake River ignores the problems already faced by our staff. The violent assaults against staff at SRCI are infamous now and the inability of the DOC to effectively address the assaults through internal means leave our members more vulnerable than ever. We know through experience that the best way to manage our institutions is through progressive and quick sanctions up to and including time in Disciplinary Segregation in the IMU unit. The only solution the Department will have now is to move all of our problem cases and most violent inmates to another facility. In this case it will be the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla and the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. What TRCI becomes has yet to be determined but more and more it appears that TRCI will become Oregon’s dungeon. Serious, violent offenders that can’t live in the community and can’t live in the prison population either. God bless the souls who have to work there. We don’t like it but we can live with this, too.

The Department of Corrections budget is stretched to the breaking point — we are nearly 200 inmates over our budgeted capacity. Simply put that means that the DOC is consuming itself. We have to take the inmates sentenced by the courts to our custody. DOC Superintendent Dave Cook, unlike some county sheriff’s, does not have any release authority — even in an emergency — so we have to find the savings from other places in the budget to pay for the inmates above our budgeted amount. That means more staffing vacancies, fewer activities to keep inmates occupied, fewer work opportunities for inmates and less productive use of the time they serve. The only thing we get more of – is violence and staff injuries. We can no longer assure our communities that prisons are good neighbors and provide no public safety risk. We cannot look citizens in the eye and tell them there is no danger – because now there is! We should all have a serious problem living with this!

We have not addressed all of the incidental cuts that simply “pile on” the problems – but we can assure you they are real and they are great. We have not addressed the issue of who gets out when and where — nor have we addressed the issues of how to manage a felon population that continues to grow without new or additional resources. No one, but us, really cares about our clients. There is nothing about an inmate that garners sympathy or vocal support. Some politicians have responded to the citizens to be tough on crime … they have been without any additional funding though — there are no free jail cells. Citizens just want criminals “locked up” they never think about the people who work there or the conditions under which these men and women work. In fact, the only time taxpayers care or think about our clients is when they are crawling in their bedroom window in the middles of the night. We have only one closing comment — make sure your windows are locked!