Last week, Senate President Mike Haridopolos removed a veteran lawmaker from chairing a Budget panel that oversees spending for prisons and courts. As Sascha Cordner reports, Senator Mike Fasano’s replacement is expected to start her first day Tuesday, and she says she’s up for the challenge.
Republican Senator Ellyn Bogdanoff says as a lawyer, she’s had experience in both the prisons and the courts, and she’s ready to create a budget. She says if prison privatization is still on the table, for her, the decision of whether to privatize is a simple one:
“Government has waste in the Corrections system and I think that there’s a way to fix that. And, certainly privatization is one component of that. We’re not privatizing the entire system. We are looking for a region. And, if I can move that money to education, health care, the developmentally disabled, I’m ok with that.”
Haridopolos is facing criticism because there’s speculation that Fasano’s dismissal was due to his opposition to a plan to privatize about 30 South Florida correctional facilities. Bogdanoff says she did not like having to displace Fasano as the head of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Civil and Criminal Justice Appropriations, but she respects the Senate President’s decision.
