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No layoffs in criminal justice budget

By Sascha Cordner

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-996611.mp3

Tallahassee, FL – The head of a Senate Budget panel that appropriates money for Criminal and Civil Justice says Governor Rick Scott has learned a lot this year. As Sascha Cordner reports, that's after the Senate Committee heard that Scott's Criminal and Civil budget recommendations did not include any layoffs.

Governor Scott is proposing about 170-million dollars in spending cuts in his Criminal Justice budget proposal for the coming year. And, Republican Senator Mike Fasano says he's pleased it does not include any layoffs.

"His staff presented to us today was a budget that reduces what's necessary, in appropriate areas, without having to hurt anybody and force them out of a position especially our corrections officers, our probation officers."

The biggest cut in Scott's "public safety" budget proposal is 115-million dollars to the Department of Corrections. Nearly half of that number will come from closing empty facilities that have thousands of vacant beds, and moving prisoners to other correctional facilities.