Monday, Oct. 28, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.
Looming budget deficits often elicit a rote response: Across-the-board cuts. Gov. Kenny Guinn used this tactic last month, ordering 3 percent cuts for most state agencies in light of figures projecting a $300 million deficit. There is one thing wrong with the tactic, however. It doesn't allow exemptions for those agencies whose expenditures actually result in overall savings.
Parole and Probation, for example, must cut $900,000 from its budget, which means a hiring freeze, office closings and cutbacks in its drug-testing program. This agency, which monitors convicts put on parole or probation, will also have to cut its $50,000 annual contract with HELP of Southern Nevada, which finds community service projects for probationers. This cut could mean an end to sentences of parole and community service, meaning that prison sentences could dramatically increase. The math is there for the figuring -- parole and community service is vastly more cost effective than time in prison.
Another point to consider is that as Parole and Probation is cut to the bone, the services of well-trained officers in this agency will be spread pretty thin among the at-risk population that needs them. This means there will undoubtedly be more repeat offenders, and even more prison sentences. Leaving aside the issue of increased crime's burden on the public, the state will be forced into just the opposite of what it's trying to achieve. Cuts to Parole and Probation will be quickly matched and then surpassed by the increases in prison spending.
If the state's executive branch does not see this logic and exempt Parole and Probation from the 3 percent cuts, then the 2003 Legislature should take action to restore them. To do otherwise would be to invite the old saying, "Penny wise, pound foolish."
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