Gov. Jerry Brown's administration says it has the money needed to comply with the latest federal court ruling on California's overcrowded prison system.
Last week, a three-judge panel granted the state a two-year extension to reach the court's inmate population cap.
The state's current budget sets aside $315 million — and there's another $400 million in Brown's budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts in July.
H.D. Palmer with the governor's Department of Finance says the money will go toward programs to keep parolees from returning to prison.
“Work training, education, living skills, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment disorder treatment to help them not re-offend when they finish out the term of their sentence," Palmer said.
Palmer says if the court decision had gone the other way, the money would have gone to buy space for the inmates in out-of-state facilities.
Meanwhile, a recent study from the progressive nonprofit California Budget Project shows that prison spending is about a $1 billion more than it was two years ago. The study says most of that increase went to correctional officer salaries and overtime and services for housing inmates.
