Parole Board Out of Money

SACRAMENTO —  The board that oversees parole of young criminals in California has run out of money, and the reason serves as a classic example of how state government can sometimes tie itself in knots.

The Youthful Offender Parole Board went technically broke in January because the Legislature gave it a budget of $1.6 million -- enough to keep it operating from last July 1 to Dec. 31.

The half-year budget was issued because lawmakers have been unhappy with the agency’s performance. Chief among them is Senate President Pro Tem John L. Burton (D-San Francisco), who has charged that the board routinely makes “stupid” decisions and is out of touch with youthful criminals.

Burton said the board sometimes holds back an eligible offender from parole because the youth did not participate in programs such as anger-management training or anti-drug therapy. He said it is little wonder that offenders leave angry when they are finally released.

Last summer, Burton introduced a bill (SB 1793) that would have given the board the rest of its money, provided it spin off some power to the juvenile court judges who send offenders to California Youth Authority lockups, from where they eventually seek parole.

The appropriation was supposed to be an inducement for Gov. Gray Davis to sign the bill. Instead, Davis vetoed it, saying a parole board reorganization was unnecessary because he had already ordered reforms.

Now the board cannot pay the rent on its new headquarters or its light and telephone bills. More than $400,000 in debt has piled up, said spokesman Steve Green of the Youth and Adult Corrections Agency, parent organization to the parole board. It has money enough to pay only the salaries of its 20 civil service employees.

The five board members, gubernatorial appointees who are paid $99,000 a year, are working for free and have not been reimbursed for the average $750 each has accrued in travel expenses for parole hearings throughout the state, Green said.

If the circumstance is not unprecedented, it certainly “is one of those freaky things that happen,” said a bemused Robb Deignan, an assistant director of the Department of General Services, which arranged the $5,868-a-month lease on the board’s new office space from a private landlord.

So far, administration officials say, parole hearings have not been adversely affected. The board conducts approximately 20,000 hearings a year for offenders younger than 18 and can require a ward to serve beyond an established release date.

But if funds don’t arrive soon, operations could be jeopardized.

Burton said he and administration officials tried before the start of the new legislative session to reach a compromise so funding would be restored on Jan. 1. The efforts failed.

Burton said Davis administration officials did not appear to want a compromise. “There was a lot of trouble coming to an agreement,” Green said.

With the board now in its third month without a budget, a new “urgency” bill (SB 459) by Burton is moving and may be voted on today by the full state Senate.

It proposes a more modest reorganization than he sought last year and contains a $1.55-million appropriation to operate the board until the July 1 start of the next fiscal year.

This time, Davis has endorsed the proposal, Green said.

Among other things, the board, which moved March 7 into new headquarters in a suburban tract on the outskirts of Sacramento, would have to surrender some of its power and responsibilities to the California Youth Authority, retaining only the duties of considering releases, revoking paroles and hearing appeals of disciplinary actions.

Burton said he believes the youth authority staff has more expertise in day-to-day dealings with wards than do members of the parole board. Supporters said the authority already informally performs many of the board’s functions. The bill also would result in lower costs and higher efficiencies, supporters say.

But another relocation move may be in store for the board. Because the bill envisions the board and the authority working more closely together, it also proposes that the board be moved from its newly occupied offices to the authority’s headquarters in a gritty Sacramento neighborhood near the exhaust fumes and noise of California 99.

Approval of the legislation can occur none too soon for the board, Green said. “As soon as they get the money, they are going to pay a lot of bills,” he said.