Florida is facing a quandary: what is the state going to do now that we have hit the 100,000 mark for how many people we have incarcerated in our state prisons.  We can certainly build more prisons, and in fact the Florida Department of Corrections has plans to construct 16 new prisons in our state.  Unfortunately, in today's down economy, we just don’t have the dollars to build it, even if they will come.

For each new prison the department estimates that it takes a minimum of $100 million to build it and another $27 million per year to operate it.  And that’s where this story begins.  Last December, Associated Industries of Florida (AIF) began working with Florida TaxWatch, a 30 year old nonpartisan, non-profit research institute which is widely admired by both Democrats and Republicans – on this vexing issue.   Over the Christmas holidays we worked together with other business groups to devise a list of budget cuts that would neither cut front-line services nor front-line workers.  Overall, TaxWatch developed a list of forty something recommendations which would have cut the state budget about $2 -3 billion.  One of the top recommendations was to NOT build these three new prisons.  To make matters worse from a fiscal perspective, the Governor admitted that the state did not have the dollars to construct them, so he was going to recommend that we bond the construction.  Of course, that would have dramatically increased the construction costs and would have increased even further the state’s overall indebtedness, perhaps leading to a downgrading our of state’s bond rating.

So, that got me thinking that AIF and our members should be concerned because inasmuch as we do not have a state income tax, the next group to be logically taxed would be - you guessed it - the business community.  This also raised the corollary argument of whether we were using our state dollars to the highest and best use in the corrections arena.  Having lobbied for 30 different behavioral healthcare companies for 12 years prior to coming to AIF, I knew instinctively that we were not. 

In January of this year, we had a special session on the budget and during that time we tried to get the legislature to consider all of the proposed cuts recommended by TaxWatch.  In addition, I decided to go and testify before the Senate HHS Appropriations Committee with a list of recommendations that I thought needed to be enunciated by someone other than the typical social service provider.  I also knew that in all of the years that I lobbied, I had never seen a business association executive come testify about a “social” issue.  I believed this would be a golden opportunity to have the Senators hear from the business community – at least AIF’s perspective that we thought there were better ways to cut the budget – and it began with not building those three new prisons.  I testified, but nothing came of it.  I began to continue to preach the message that we cannot afford to continue to build prisons if we didn’t first attempt to change the equation on the front end, and so began this concerted effort to build a coalition and spread our message.  Finally, on the day before the 2209 session began, DOC Secretary Walt McNeil announced that the department would forgo the request for construction dollars for the new prisons.

Despite this transitory victory, the real question I was continually asked by the news media was: why does the business community care?  And then, of course, I had to contemplate how I could justify this policy issue to my board of directors?  The answer was that since the business community is the second largest payer group to the state treasury, behind the property tax, and it seemed to me that if tax dollars weren’t being spent in the smartest fashion, then business tax dollars – everyone’s tax dollars - were being squandered.  And isn’t it incumbent on the state to expend dollars in the most efficacious way, with the best outcomes, in other words we need to insure that “we get the best bang for the buck,” especially in these tight budget times.  Clearly that was not happening.  I called some friends and we met one Saturday morning and we decided to pursue a smarter expenditure of dollars in three ways:  (1) diversion programs on the front end for non-violent, low-level drug users, (2) character-based and faith-based programming in our state prisons that will teach life-skills and help improve reading and writing skills so that they may be employable in the future, and (3) re-entry programs for when they return to society.   We believed that this could be undertaken at a cost below what it was costing Florida to incarcerate prisoners.

Wow, I thought I sounded like some radical left-wing liberal, which clearly I am not. Or I sounded like some kind of shill for the behavioral healthcare industry that I used to represent – which I admittedly was.  But if the truth is told, there is a smarter way out there, there has to be because the current recidivism rate in Florida is 33% after two years out of prison and it goes to 50% after five years.  Therefore, not only are we wasting much of our efforts and dollars, we are also potentially creating new crime victims if these people have to return to prison.

I asked the Collins Center for Public Policy, a distinguished think tank named after one of our most beloved former Governors – LeRoy Collins, to take on the responsibility of organizing our efforts and that AIF would help to lead the charge from the business community side.  Before long, we had folks like former DOC Secretary Jim McDonough, a dedicated reformer who is tough as nails, on our side.  Then the Florida Police Benevolent Association read about our efforts and asked for a meeting and lo and behold, so long as we were not talking about “early release of prisoners,” they would also support our efforts because it could make prisons a safer place for their correctional guards to work.  Slowly, the Coalition for Smart Justice took shape and then we decided to try and make a concerted effort to impact the state budget by talking about potential cost savings.  With the help of two State Circuit Court Judges – Judge Melanie May of the Drug Courts, and Judge Steve Liefman of the Mental Health Courts, we were able to convince both of the Republican legislators who chair the Criminal Justice Appropriations committee in the Senate and House to consider doing the correction business in a different fashion.  Sen. Victor Crist and Rep. Sandy Adams respectively were willing to listen to our ideas and also listen to the judges, and eventually we all were able to convince them to put some dollars into the front-end diversion programs with the promise that if this produced future savings in the state budget that they would in turn use these dollars to fund the back end – the re-entry programs.  Consequently, these two visionary legislators helped to fashion the budget to try and accomplish this worthy goal. 

On November 16th and 17th in Tampa, the Coalition is going to host a Justice Summit and bring together a diverse group of individuals to help fashion how we can continue this initiative in Florida.  What legislation will we need to pursue to keep this policy on track?  I’m often asked how is it that we can change the system when the state has no new money, and my response is, isn’t that the best time to change our ways.  When we are facing a financial abyss is just the right time to find another way to “skin the cat.”  We know that the status quo isn’t working and so we have to begin to think outside-of-the-box. 

Interestingly, while we were pursuing our efforts here in the Sunshine State, my counterpart in Michigan had already started a similar effort to bring the business community to the forefront to demand that they do the corrections business in a new way there.  They drafted an open letter to their Governor and legislature calling for change, and eventually we decided to copy their good idea.

In the meantime, the Annie Casey Foundation has called me and my peer in Michigan to come to Washington, DC in early October to discuss our efforts and see how we may be able to replicate this nationally.  It seems that what most interests the Foundation is that in both cases, the business community is leading the charge, which they have never witnessed before. 

I wish I could tell you that our efforts will be successful, but it is way too early in the process and we still have too many impediments to overcome.  But, AIF is known for its tenacity.  We once fought 33 years over a tort issue before we finally overturned a wrong-headed Supreme Court decision.  We never gave up.  

Nevertheless, I have learned the correct verbiage to use, like “all prisoners will continue to serve at least 85% of their sentences.”  And that’s easy for me because I believe that must happen for violent prisoners who must be kept under tight lock and key in order to protect our citizenry.  With a Republican-dominated legislature, there is no likelihood of us securing any change unless public safety remains paramount.  At the same time, most Floridians are willing to give non-violent, low level drugies the opportunity for treatment rather than incarceration, if it can save critical state dollars and concurrently produce good outcomes.  That is simple to talk about, but as all of you know it is really difficult to make happen. 

In closing, I ask once again why employers should care.  The simplest answer is that as business owners, we have experienced drug abuse and mental health issues on a daily basis.  It could be one of our employees, a member of our family or even a friend.  I know it isn’t popular today to typify business people as caring individuals, what with all of the problems on Wall Street and beyond.  But, for AIF and our members this is an effort worth undertaking – I just hope it doesn’t take 33 years to accomplish our collective goals because I won’t be around to see it.

Thank you for letting me share my thoughts with you today.