In the January preliminary budget, Gov. Gray Davis included a
big fat zero in the place reserved for the $120 million for drug
treatment and rehabilitation voters approved as Proposition 36 in
2000.
In the January preliminary budget, Gov. Gray Davis included a big fat zero in the place reserved for the $120 million for drug treatment and rehabilitation voters approved as Proposition 36 in 2000.
When the gasps had subsided, the governor’s people explained that this was part of the “realignment” proposal that would transfer certain programs to the counties – along with revenues from the higher taxes he was proposing on cigarettes, sales and high incomes.
When the governor presents a more detailed budget next month – known as the “May revise” – it should simply include the drug treatment program. In a budget projected to be more than $26 billion in deficit, this program is a relatively small one, though very significant to the 30,000 people now in treatment statewide.
And there are legal reasons it would be difficult to transfer it from the state to the counties. The main reason is that the program, including $120 million to fund it, a state oversight system and an independent evaluation study, was put in place by the voters through the initiative process.
Presumably voters agreed, in the hotly contested campaign, that treatment was preferable to incarceration for certain drug offenders, and that has turned out to be the case. Any changes would have to be made by the voters through the same initiative process.
The state Department of Corrections estimates that it costs $26,690 a year to keep somebody in prison, while drug treatment averages about $4,300 a year. Treatment rather than jail is a more cost-effective and less harmful approach. The voters agree. The governor should go along.
