The Department of Corrections will need to expand its budget by between $3 million to $4 million in 2014 to accommodate a rise in detainees, according Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito.
The department pegs the average daily detainee population at approximately 419 for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2013, up from 372 in 2012. (All numbers are for fiscal year, which run from July 1 to June 30.) The average daily population of detainees had decreased 13.4 percent from 2010 to 2011, but it then increased 10 percent from 337.8 in 2011 to 372 in 2012.
The average annual cost per detainee is $58,074.
“This rise is why detention is a topic of conversation with the Legislature,” says Pallito.
The department avoided having to request a budget adjustment for FY2013 by carrying over $1.8 million left over from the 2012 budget. But, it will have to go through the Legislature to request the additional $3 million to $4 million for FY2014.
The corrections budget was $142.01 million in 2012 and $143.48 million in 2013.
In a Sept. 4 memo to Superior Court judges and clerks, Judge Amy M. Davenport, the chief administrative judge for the Superior Court, attributes the rise in detainee numbers to an increase in charges, particularly for domestic violence and drug offenses.
