07/30/2007

Cuts hit prison work crews

Department of Corrections cancels public works contracts

By Brian Mcgillivary

bmcgillivary@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Prisoners repair a wooden walkway in the Sabin Pond Natural Area south of Traverse City.

TRAVERSE CITY — A state cost-cutting move will put an end to prison work crews that created dozens of hiking trails and repaired and restored hundreds of eroding stream banks in the Grand Traverse region.

The Michigan Department of Corrections cancelled all public works contracts across the state effective Aug. 17, including most of the 27 work crews coming out of the Pugsley Correctional Facility in Kingsley. Crews working for state agencies will be continued.

"This was not a desirable decision and it's not something we wanted to do, but with the state's budget situation it was not something we could avoid,” said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

Among the casualties is the Grand Traverse Conservation District and its 23-year history of using the crews for stream restoration projects.

Steve Largent, the district's director of land management services, said prison crews have done outstanding work all over the region, from the trail system on Kids Creek behind Kohl's Department Store, the TART Trail's Mitchell Creek Crossing, to bank stabilization projects all along the Boardman and Manistee rivers.

He said the crew chief, corrections officer Al Strange, is highly skilled in construction and has proven invaluable in implementing projects and training prisoners.

"These (prisoners) really take pride in what they are doing and they get to see the end results,” Largent said. "They learn a new skill and several have come back to tell me they've been able to employ it when they got back, as they call it, to the real world.”

Lew Coulter, director of the conservation district, said it is difficult to gauge what impact the state's decision will have on future projects, but they expect it to be significant. He estimates it will cost the district $10,000 more just to finish out their current projects this year.

"It's obviously going to cost more for labor-intensive projects where you have to carry deck lumber over several hundred yards of trails to get to the site,” he said.

The state charges $15 a day per prisoner, with the prisoner getting $2.50. Marlan said that covers about 11 percent of the state's cost, resulting in an annual program cost of $8.9 million.

"They are probably looking at about $15 an hour, not $15 a day, to replace the prisoners,” Marlan said.

Coulter said the district likely will have to hire seasonal help and try to rely more on volunteers to accomplish projects, which will take longer and cost more for the three main clients, Traverse City, Garfield Township and Grand Traverse County. He said it's unlikely the district will be able to do any projects outside Grand Traverse County.

Marlan said the Department of Corrections will re-evaluate the program next year if the state's budget situation improves.