The Governor proposed in his State of the State address a constitutional amendment that would, beginning in 2014-15, limit prison spending to seven percent of the General Fund and guarantee higher education a minimum of ten percent of General Fund spending. The Legislative Analyst recently released a brief criticizing this proposal because it would “unwisely constrain” the ability of the state to set priorities, and is unnecessary because the Legislature can already shift funding among state programs.
The Governor made his proposal because of the disturbing and superficially symmetrical trends over the past twenty-five years: the share of the budget devoted to higher education (University of California and California State University) has declined from about 11 percent to 5.7 percent. Meanwhile, the share devoted to prisons has increased over the same period from about four percent to 9.5 percent.
Without doubt, as has been argued in this space before, California higher education institutions are under-resourced and deserve greater attention and public investment from state policy makers. But setting prisons against colleges in the budget creates a false choice. After all, the purpose of prisons is not to spend money (well, maybe it is for the guards’ union). It is to protect the public and reduce crime. The following chart is not dispositive, because many factors influence the crime rate. But it’s a place to start.
Loren