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Wednesday, March 29, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Senate to continue prison debate
Governor proposes $73.2 million plan
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — A legislative committee was scheduled today to continue its discussions on Gov. Mike Hayden's plan to spend $73.2 million on new prison construction, a day after the chairman of a Senate committee unveiled his proposal to decrease prison overcrowding.
Sen. Ed Reilly, R-Leavenworth, chairman of the Federal and State Affairs Committee, proposed yesterday that the state expand existing institu- tion to include Northor and Norton. His committee voted to draft a bill.
Meanwhile, the Joint Committee on State Building Construction remained uneasy about Hayden's proposal for a $8.7 million, 768-bed prison and a jail in Chicago. He insisted that he would mental illies inmate at Larned State Hospital
Rep. David Heinemann suggested that the state hire consultants to mull over the Larned proposal
and study the needs of mentally ill inmates, delaying a decision on that part of the plan until the 1990 Legislature. The committee's chairman, Sen. Tom Carper, said his group's still uncomfortable with the Hayden proposal.
Corrections Secretary Roger Endell expressed his frustration with the delays of the legislative process.
"The numbers you're concerned with are the dollars," he told the building committee. "What we're concerned with is the bodies. No matter what Legislature approves, it will be full when it opens."
U. S. District Judge Richard Rogers ordered the state last month to eliminate all prison overcrowding by July 1, 1981 and to improve conditions at several prisons. He also ordered the Department of Corrections to give him a plan by Friday to improve services for mentally ill inmates.
Endell insisted the Legislature needed to approve Hayden's plan, along with proposals to set up a criminal sentencing commission and expand his jurisdiction. It, if it was to solve its prison overcrowding crisis,
Committee members also debated the proposed
size of the new prison Heinemann suggested the committee recommend building a 512-bed prison and give the 1990 Legislature the option of expanding the project.
Reilly, whose district includes the Kansas State Penitentiary and the Kansas Correctional Institution at Lansing, said his plan was designed to reduce overcrowding quickly so that a special committee could develop a long-term master plan this summer and fall.
Reilly proposes that the state remove medium-security inmates from Kansas State Penitentiary and the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory in Hutchinson, a move he said would free 686 bedrs.
Also, the state would put 192 medium-security cellblocks on land adjacent to the prisons at a cost of $50 million.
The senator also proposed that the state house twice as many inmates at the Norton Correctional Facility, which houses 223 prisoners and is run by the Prison Reform Reilly proposes that inmates be put two-to-a-cell.
He also proposed that the state expand the Hutchinson Correctional Facility from 400 inmates to 750.
1990 budget goes to House; some amendments requested
bv Alan Morgan
Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA — University of Kansas officials said yesterday they were pleased with a House committee's 199 recommended budget for KU.
The House Appropriations committee vote yesterday to recommend, with some changes, the KU budget as approved by the Senate last week. The proposed budget will next go to the House floor for debate, but it could be further amended in committee.
Marlin Rein, KU associate director of business affairs, said there were only two changes he did not favor. Those are the deletion of three full positions and $62.99 of the state fund related to the positions.
A subcommittee's report said the reduction in maintenance positions was based on the razing of nine
structures for the building of the new Lied Performing Arts Center.
Another deletion the subcommittee made in the KU budget was $636,078 of the State-General Fund for adjusting it to the general use operating budget.
Some representatives on the Appropriations Committee expressed concern about the cut in the operating budget. State Rep. Duane A. Gooseen, R.Goessel and chairman of the subcommittee that discussed the KU budget, said, "The change in the operating budget was only a technical adjustment. There was an error in setting up the budget.
"The change does not reflect any policy decisions made by the subcommittee, only a change in a technical aspect."
Rein agreed with Goossen and said the change did not affect the budget.
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