SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A federal court monitor still wants to investigate his own allegation that the Schwarzenegger administration has stifled prison reform in California by cozying up to the state's correctional officers union.

Special Master John Hagar, in a final report that he submitted Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson in San Francisco, maintained his recommendation that he be allowed to investigate the contacts between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

In asking for the authority to conduct the investigation, Hagar said in the report that the Schwarzenegger administration reversed its commitment to fixing an assortment of prison ills. The change in policy, Hagar said, threatens to thwart the administration's overhaul of the prison system's internal affairs operation and could pose difficulties in the ongoing contract talks with the CCPOA.

Hagar declined to discuss the report. But the plaintiffs' attorney who filed the case that led to the special master's appointment said, "It's a good idea to have new hearings and find out what's happening."

"It could only help, in terms of making sure that if there is a problem it's identified quickly and that the reforms aren't jeopardized," said Steve Fama of the Prison Law Office.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn repeated the administration's argument that Hagar's final report, like the draft report he issued June 21 that sent political rumbling through Sacramento, "is based on hearsay and unconfirmed reports."

"The administration is committed to prison reform and will continue focusing on our efforts to address the overcrowding crisis," Mendelsohn said.

The CCPOA has said it welcomes the hearings suggested by Hagar, but union spokesman Lance Corcoran said the special master "has already made his conclusions" and as a result has undermined his own role as "an unbiased decision-maker."

"We'd prefer someone who has not formed conclusions to make the determinations in any future investigation," Corcoran said.

Hagar's 52-page report said the CCPOA's opening contract proposals with the state "may negatively impact" remedial plans now taking hold in the correctional system concerning use of force, internal investigations, correctional officer discipline, job assignments and union intrusion into managerial prerogatives.

Hagar's report questioned the "tone" of one CCPOA proposal suggesting that the administration "bends to the federal courts and their whims." The special master wrote that some of the union's proposals represent "nothing less than a concerted attack" on court oversight of the prison system.

Corcoran termed Hagar's characterizations "ridiculous." Fama, however, said the union's proposals quoted in the special master's report "suggest that the CCPOA has little, if any, respect for the reforms the court has mandated or is supervising."