Nearly $1 Million Spent on Satellite Television for Prisoners!

Salem, Ore– Common Sense For Oregon today announced its fourth Golden Fleece Award winner.  The award has been given for a second time to the Oregon Department of Corrections for spending nearly $1 million on free satellite television service for prisoners.

“This is unbelievable,” said Ross Day, executive director of Common Sense For Oregon, “First we discovered the state was giving away free soda pop, now we discovered the state is giving prisoners free satellite television.”

Although the satellite television service is paid out of the Inmate Welfare Fund, which is an account that is funded through profits from the sale of items to prisoners and families, revenue from the Inmate Welfare Fund could be spent on other programs which are currently being funded with taxpayer dollars.

“The taxpayers of Oregon are back-filling drug and alcohol treatment programs, education programs, and counseling programs so the Department of Corrections can provide free satellite television service to prisoners,” said Day.

Oregon administrative rules allow money from the Inmate Welfare Fund to be used for the purchase of “equipment for television viewing”, but not for satellite (or cable) television services, which is another reason this expense is highly questionable, said Day.  A copy of the relevant administrative rule is attached to this release.

“This money should be used on programs that are currently paid for with tax dollars.  The Department of Corrections would save the taxpayers money by simply purchasing a 50 dollar antennae and letting prisoners watch over-the-air television,” Day concluded.

This latest Golden Fleece Award was brought to the attention of Common Sense For Oregon from a tip received from a corrections officer on the anonymous, toll-free tip line created by Common Sense For Oregon.  The telephone number is 1-877-UFLEECE.  Or, citizens can go to www.commonsensefororegon.org and leave an anonymous message on that website.

Common Sense For Oregon is an Oregon non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting common sense solutions to the issues important to Oregonians.

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Specific Uses of Funds

The Department may, with legislative and executive department authorization, use Inmate Welfare Fund monies to fund a variety of programs, services and activities benefiting the general inmate population and enhancing inmate activities and programs, including capital construction and improvement projects in support of such programs, services and activities. Specific uses of the fund may include, but are not limited to, operation, support or enhancement of the following programs, services and activities:

(1) Education programs;

(2) Alcohol and drug treatment and education programs;

(3) Department of Corrections facility canteens, including copying machine made available for inmate use through the facility canteens;

(4) Inmate trust accounting system;

(5) Provision of postage-paid envelopes for indigent inmates;

(6) Provision of nonprescription, over-the-counter health aids made available for inmate use in inmate housing units in Department of Corrections facilities;

(7) Department of Corrections facility libraries designated for inmate use;

(8) Department of Corrections facility visiting room equipment, supplies and services; and

(9) Inmate activities programs, including:

(a) Equipment for television viewing;

(b) Visiting music/entertainment groups;

(c) Music equipment and supplies;

(d) Activities equipment, supplies and services;

(e) Repair of equipment purchased from the Inmate Welfare Fund;

(f) Food or supplies for food for special occasions;

(g) Inmate awards for the purpose of providing umpires, referees, and maintaining activity equipment and apparel;

(h) Inmate tournaments and holiday events;

(i) Inmate club activities; and

(j) Entertainment equipment, supplies and services.

During the 2009 legislative session, former state senator Margaret Carter served as co-chair on the Joint Ways and Means committee which approved a bill that appropriated funds through new legislation to the Dept. of Human Services in the 2009 Legislative Session. The measure—HB 2009—authorized the creation of addition deputy director positions. Margaret Carter was hired as the Deputy Director for Human Services Programs.

As a state senator, Carter earned $21,612 per year. In her new position, Carter will be making $121,872, fully $100,000 more than she made as a state senator.

Carter’s employment in this new, lucrative position was assured. First, Carter lobbied the Director of the Department of Human Services for the position. It is not entirely clear when Carter started lobbying for the position—before or after HB 2009 became law—but it is clear that Carter wanted the $100,000 pay raise. Second, Carter lobbied the Governor’s office for the position.

Finally, unlike most candidate recruitment efforts that interview numerous candidates for an open position (especially a position with the responsibilities as the Deputy Director of Human Services Programs), the Department of Human Services only interviewed Carter for the position, virtually guaranteeing her employment as the new Deputy Director.

Even The Oregonian reported in August that Carter talked with both the Director of the Department of Human Services and the Governor’s office about the position. Carter’s lucrative position was created by the 2009 Legislature by House Bill 2009. Legislative records show that Carter’s committee worked on the measure.

In addition to the ethically questionable circumstances surrounding Carter’s employment, there are likely legal issues as well. Article IV, Section 30 of the Oregon Constitution prohibits legislators from filling “office(s) of profit” that the legislators themselves created during the legislative session. This constitutional provision is intended to avoid the circumstance where a legislator trades her vote in return for a lucrative job in an agency in which the legislator exercises control. In short, this constitutional provision is intended to prohibit exactly the circumstances surrounding Carter’s employment.

Article IV, Section 30 of the Oregon Constitution:
No Senator or Representative shall…be appointed to any civil office of profit which shall have been created during such term [i.e. created during the time for which the Legislator was elected].

A civil office of profit is any office that is continuing, prescribed by law, and invested with some powers of sovereignty. Wells v. State of Indiana, ex. rel. Peden, 175 Ind. 380, (1911). Deputy director positions are by definition a “civil office of profit”. Id. at 384-385.

House Bill 2009, passed by the 2009 Legislature, created the position of Deputy Director of Human Services.

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The Golden Fleece Award will be awarded on a regular basis to the person, politician or government agency responsible for the most notorious—and wasteful—example of spending highlighted in the previous month.

Tri-Met currently spends as much as $1,932 per employee per month on health insurance premiums. In case you are wondering, that is more than any other transit district in the country! What’s more, Tri-Met pays the full cost of the health insurance premiums not only for current employees, but for retirees as well! Employees and retirees pay absolutely nothing toward the costs of their health insurance.

Neither do state employees, who also have great health benefits. But guess what, health insurance premiums for the state cost at most $1,245 per month per employee. That is roughly 65% less than what Tri-Met pays for the health insurance for their employees. Why doesn’t Tri-Met simply buy into the state plan and save almost $700 per employee? Especially when a recent report prepared by Tri-Met’s own Citizen’s Advisory Committee on the Budget called Tri-Met’s health benefit plan “Rich” and “Unsustainable”.

Over half of Tri-Met’s revenues come from taxes imposed on residents who live in the tri-county area (not from fare revenue, as some may have you believe). Which means that when Tri-Met’s health benefits plan becomes insolvent, taxpayers are going to be left footing the bill for bus drivers who enjoy Cadillac health insurance.

Department of Corrections Chief Max Williams claims that food like soda pop is an important tool for managing prisoners. Perhaps if the prisoners weren’t hopped up on sugar from the free soda pop they are getting, there wouldn’t be a management problem.

“So sit back and ‘Have a COKE and a Smile’, just like like criminals in Oregon.

About the Golden Fleece Award

Oregonians are constantly being told by the politicians that government simply does not have enough money. This is hard to believe when year after year the government rakes in more of our tax dollars, and yet still claims it does not have enough money. When is enough, enough?

The trick the politicians try to use to justify their excessive spending is by claiming that “there is not enough money to maintain current service levels”. The assumption in this bold statement made by the politicians is that “current service levels” are justified, or are in the public’s best interests. The fact of the matter is that Oregon has a significant amount of waste and excessive spending in our State budget. The problem is that the politicians have made the budget process in Oregon so difficult to understand, so convoluted, and so unintelligible that ordinary Oregonians who have to work 40 plus hours a week in order to put food on their table, a roof over their heads, and cloths on their back simply do not have the time to do the research necessary to weed out government mismanagement.

Common Sense For Oregon is organized, in part, to help you better understand how your tax dollars are being spent. Check back here for more information on how the government is spending your money, the ways which your tax dollar are being misspent, and on those rare occasions, how government is getting the most bang for your tax dollar.

Once a month, Common Sense For Oregon will present a Gold Fleece Award to a politician, program, or other spend thrifts that waste your hard earned tax dollars on foolish items that ordinary Oregonians would never support.