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| Lawmakers Want to Save CDC Internal Affairs Office |
| By Inland Valley Daily Bulletin |
| Published: 06/10/2003 |
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A legislative committee weighed in last week against a proposal to close the Rancho Cucamonga office of the state prison system's internal affairs division and lay off 16 agents. The California Department of Corrections hopes closing the southern branch of its investigative arm will pare $956,000 in annual personnel costs. But when asked by lawmakers, CDC officials admitted the only savings identified thus far is $120,000 per year in rent for its Inland Valley office. 'To me, closing the Rancho Cucamonga office is a nonstarter,' said Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Rosemead and chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on the California Correctional System. The Rancho Cucamonga office houses a team of internal affairs officers who investigate such things as misconduct allegations made against prison staff. It is one of three such offices in the state, and the only one south of Bakersfield. Critics of the closure plan say eliminating the Rancho Cucamonga office would drastically reduce oversight of officers and staff at Southern California prisons. On June 5, CDC officials appeared before a joint hearing of Romero's committee and the Senate Select Committee on Government Oversight, where they surprised presiding legislators with news of a contingency plan. This proposal would close the Rancho Cucamonga office, but open a satellite office with eight agents and three support staff at the California Institution for Men in Chino. The remaining agents currently working out of the southern branch of the CDC's Office of Investigative Services would be transferred to Bakersfield or OIS's northern division. 'The Chino outpost was part of our planning; we should have made that clear to you,' Tom Moore, CDC assistant director for the Office of Investigative Services, said to the committee. Under the Chino plan, vacant employee housing on the prison grounds would be converted to office space, with the agents supervised by the central office in Bakersfield. According to Moore, a total cost analysis for opening the Chino outpost and closing the Rancho Cucamonga office has not been done -- much to the chagrin of the committee. He did say that four southern-office positions currently vacant would likely be eliminated. Davis' revised 2003-04 spending plan unveiled in May called for the closure of the Rancho Cucamonga office in an effort to save $956,000. The governor, responding to a deficit estimated at $34 billion, proposes cutting a total of $34.7 million from the CDC's budget next year. |
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