Rayburn funding stays in Senate version of HB1

Funding for Rayburn Correctional Center and four other state prisons remained in the final version of HB1, passed by the Louisiana Senate by a 36-2 vote at 8:27 p.m. Sunday night.

The bill now goes back to the House for another review and vote. Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he will sign the bill if the House approves it.

The bill authorizes 13 administrative, 290 incarceration and three auxiliary positions for Rayburn for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The House had cut $27.5 million, roughly 5 percent of the total budget of the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DOC), earlier in the legislative session. Those proposed cuts prompted DOC Secretary James M. LeBlanc to send letters to the wardens of the five prisons, outlining the state's "layoff timetable" and setting July 17 as the employee termination date. The memo, which was published on wpnewsblog on Friday, June 3, caused widespread panic in Washington Parish.

This past Wednesday, Sen. Ben Nevers (D, Bogalusa) and Sen. Jack Donahue (R, Covington) explained that money had been moved around. Donahue is a member of the finance committe, while Nevers was deeply involved in helping find funding to keep Rayburn open.

The committee’s members said they tried to maintain the spirit of the House’s version by matching one-time money to one-time expenses. The shuffling — including the use of $55 million in leftover hurricane recovery funds — resulted in a restoration of the $200 million in funding that the House cut.

(Published first at http://www.wpnewsblog.blogspot.com)