Director Josh Tewalt’s presentation in our Criminal Justice Reinvestment Interim Committee was instructive to the rest of the executive branch and state agencies as he addressed the staffing crisis in our prisons. “We know what will work,” he said as he discussed some of the solutions, like competitive salaries, to ensure appropriate staffing and safety in prisons, and these solutions to address a staffing crisis can be applied beyond IDOC’s door.
We need to invest in our employees especially as the state grows and our economy evolves due to the pandemic, population shifts, and pressure related to supply and demand. We are going to have to examine what it’s worth to have higher quality services, so we aren’t always responding to emergencies but investing in the future.
He pointed out the key issues IDOC faces — similar challenges impacting many of the other state agencies:
– competitive job market,
– employees who need child care,
– lack of affordable housing…
Yet, we have a GOP-led legislature who for years has resisted providing adequate pay for public employees and a salary system that fails to recognize merit and longevity.
We have a GOP-led legislature that refuses to invest in child care and turned back a $6 million grant to support local child care cooperatives last session over bogus and politically manufactured misinformation. Sexism rears its ugly head when one representative from the floor stated that child care may “encourage women to leave the home.”
We have a government that has refused to pay attention to the housing trends overtime, and when hit with the pandemic, was faced with archaic systems and outdated thinking about the most fundamental of our needs — a safe home!
The Governor claims we have almost $1 billion surplus due to conservative budgeting. Granted, we have a good rainy day fund, which I support having. However, our “surplus” is no surplus….it’s there due to setting the budget too low and depriving state agencies of adequate resources.
Serving on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee for 4 years, I saw the arbitrary and very political budget war going on between the Governor, who sets the budget, and the legislature who approves, or should I say, undercuts it, bragging about who spent less money. Politics gets in the way of what we truly need and what would benefit our state. I don’t know the benefit of just watching a pile of money grow: invest and put it to work!
Corrections will gain support, because it’s the one area that we can’t ignore. As Director Tewalt said in committee, “Unlike other businesses, you can’t just close down on a Thursday” to save resources. We have to staff facilities or people’s lives may be at risk. And, I believe that the general public pays attention because of public safety concerns.
However, this same need goes for child protection work, social work, health care, teaching, fish and game, etc.
If we are going to address issues that IDOC faces along with the rest of state government we will need to do a few things:
- We need to get property taxes in check by reinstating a fair homeowners exemption or find another way to limit increases for longtime residents.
- We need to make growth pay for itself; people who want to live here for the high quality of life, need to help foot the bill to keep it that way instead of on the backs of long-time residents.
- We need to invest in child care to support a growing economy.
- We must invest in high-quality health care systems.
- We have to keep up with market forces in this economy and pay people what they are worth.\
- We need to incentivize workforce and affordable housing, so people can afford to live where they work.
- And finally, like a broken record, WE NEED TO INVEST IN EDUCATION AND HIGH QUALITY SCHOOLS and SUPPORT OUR TEACHERS. Early learning, which impacts literacy, directly correlates with lower incarceration rates. So, if we want to DECREASE INCARCERATION, we have to INVEST IN EDUCATION.
I am an Ironman finisher; I know that you don’t save all your food and water to the end. You have to follow a plan. You don’t get out of the water after swimming 2.4 miles and look at your power bars and tell yourself, “I’ll just save that for later.” You don’t ride your bike for 112 miles and save your water and energy bars for later. You would never make it to the marathon let alone the end of the race. By then you are dehydrated and debilitated.
It doesn’t make sense to stack up your money and just salivate as you watch it grow. We need a real plan to invest for the long haul; hit goals at the appropriate mile markers along the way, so we can go the distance for our own benefit and for generations to come.
The information presented to us today by the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Committee doesn’t just apply to our prison systems, but to the entire state. We must invest in our employees by providing a competitive salary, a good working environment that includes child and health care to attract and retain people, and affordable housing so people can work near where they live. This is how we create opportunities for every Idahoan to succeed and better our state.