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| Saturday, June 17, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Prison gym funding locked up elsewhere Money ticketed for prison recreation goes to upgraded locks and a high-voltage fence. By J.M. Kalil
Review-Journal The chairman of the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee said Friday that the agency that oversees state construction projects broke the law when money earmarked by lawmakers for inmate recreation at the new superprison was spent elsewhere.
Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, said $2.4 million appropriated by the 1999 Legislature for an inmate gymnasium at High Desert State Prison was illegally diverted by the Nevada Public Works Board to pay for upgraded cell locks and a perimeter fence that would deliver a 20,000-volt lethal shock to prisoners trying to escape.
"(Public Works officials) were trying to keep this a secret. They thought they were going to do whatever they wanted to, and they can't," said Arberry, adding that he first raised the issue with Public Works Board Manager Eric Raecke in April and still has not received an answer on why a gym wasn't built.
Raecke did not return several phone calls to his Las Vegas and Carson City offices Friday.
Arberry said Legislative Counsel Bureau attorneys opined Wednesday that Public Works officials had ignored Nevada law by not using the $2.4 million to build a gym.
But Friday, Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes said it appears officials would have had to move money appropriated for prison construction to a completely different project for Nevada statutes to have been violated.
Interim Finance Committee members on Wednesday instructed Public Works Deputy Manager Ward Patrick to reappear before the panel in September with a solution to the gymnasium funding problem.
"They're taking advantage of us and the taxpayer by pointing fingers at one another, but I don't care about that -- I want that gym built," Arberry said.
High Desert State Prison, called a superprison because it will have a capacity of 3,000 inmates and nearly 1 million square feet when completed, is 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas near Indian Springs. The first of three phases is scheduled to open in August, when 1,000 inmates will be transferred to the facility.
"There's a lot bigger issue here than just locking prisoners up," said Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, another member of the Interim Finance Committee. "You're going to have a problem if you've got 1,500 prisoners out there and you're not allowing them any form of tension release."
Kathy Dow, deputy manager of Public Works, said the financial shortfalls that caused money to be diverted from gym construction stem from decisions made by former Department of Prisons Director Bob Bayer, who was relieved of his job March 23 by Gov. Kenny Guinn.
She said Bayer's directive to use state-of-the-art $3,000 rack-and-pinion locks on every cell at High Desert, rather than the less expensive ones originally budgeted, pushed costs up nearly $500,000 in four of the prison's housing units.
The lethal electrical fence, also not included in the original budget, increased the cost of construction significantly, she said.
Dow said that when Guinn announced a state budget shortfall in December 1998 and directed state agencies to cut spending, the Public Works Board returned nearly $4 million in construction funds Raecke didn't think would be needed to complete the prison.
Members of the state chapter of CURE, a prisoners' rights advocacy group, were disappointed when they learned three months ago that contractors were not building the gym. They immediately began notifying legislators, many of whom did not believe them at first.
"One of the goals listed in the Department of Prisons' mission statement is reducing idleness among prisoners," said Mercedes Maharis, director of Nevada CURE. "How are they going to do that if inmates don't have anything to do but sit in a cell 23 hours a day?"
Jackie Crawford, the Lovelock Correctional Center warden Guinn promoted last month to replace Bayer, said the decision on the gym was a compromise.
"We have this certain amount of money and you take a shopping cart and you go through and get what's required for the prison to function," Crawford said. "But you don't always get everything you want. There was some prioritizing about what this department thought was most necessary."
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A correctional officer walks beside rack-and-pinion locks over the doors of cells at High Desert State Prison. The state Public Works Board said the locks cost $3,000 each, part of the reason there was not enough money to build a gym at the prison.
Photo by Jeff Scheid.
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