The Governor's Incentive Program

Last week, Governor McDonnell announced an incentive program for state employees.  Come up with a money saving suggestion and get $2500.  I’m not sure if I’m a state employee.  The prison pays me forty-five cents an hour to educate inmates (where’s the public teachers union on that wage disparity).  Frankly, the Governor can keep his $2500.  Let me out early and you save the taxpayers $25,000 per year.

Here are a couple of “savings” ideas for the Governor to consider.  Frankly, finding wasted money in the DOC bureaucracy is about as tough as spotting the elephant in a ten by ten room.  Here’s a couple of “no brainers” –

·         VCE (Virginia Corrections Enterprises).  The VCE plant here has inmates building office and dormitory furniture.  We’re not talking hand-crafted, solid oak pieces. No these are pre-cut chairs, conference room tables and the like.  Labor costs are practically nil (55 cents to 85 cents per hour; remember, the 13^th Amendment outlawed slavery except as it applies to inmate labor).  These simple chairs are sold to Virginia’s universities for around $1500 a piece.  The same chair could be purchased on the open market for $200 or $300.  Virginia requires its universities to buy from VCE.  VCE makes a huge profit which is then used to prop up the staggering costs of its prison.  The universities, meanwhile, have to spend their stretched dollars on price inflated furniture.  Their cost is then passed on as tuition increases paid by; you guessed it, Virginia taxpayers. It’s a shell game, a Ponzi scheme.  There needs to be transparency in prison funding.

·         Taking the “shell game” concept further, my second proposal is to end the cozy relationships between DOC’s vendors and DOC.  Corrections Cable is a joke.  Why not let prisons negotiate cable deals with local providers.  It would generate work in the local community and save money.  Same with DOC’s sweetheart deal with Jones Express Music (JEM), Global Tel Link and Keefe Commissary.  These companies make enormous profits off inmates and their families.  Over and over we hear Governor McDonnell talk about private enterprise.  Just as President Eisenhower warned Americans in his farewell address of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex”, so to are the dangers of this adulterous relationship between DOC and its vendors.  “History repeats itself” is an often used cliché.  Think Krupp, Bremen Motor Works and the Nazi concentration camp system.  Transparency, Governor, transparency.

·         And finally, why spend $25,000 per year to house nonviolent felons who could be out working, paying taxes and supporting their families?  If the goal of “corrections” is to rehabilitate, then do so and send the rehabilitated inmates back to society.  Arbitrary sentencing doesn’t help rehabilitate convicts.  It only makes them bitter.

So Governor, that’s three good ideas that will save the Commonwealth millions.  I look forward to receiving your check.  Oh, I forgot.  DOC doesn’t allow checks.  You’ll need to run by the 7-11 for a money order!