Proposed death row facility to cost millions more than originally projected

A new report by the CA State Auditor reveals that the proposed death row housing facility will cost far more than originally projected by the CDCR. The projected costs for building and maintaining the new death row facility for the next 20 years are shocking.  READ DPF'S PRESS RELEASE. 

********** 

June 10, 2008 

The Governor of California 
President pro Tempore of the Senate 
Speaker of the Assembly 
State Capitol 
Sacramento, California 95814 


Dear Governor and Legislative Leaders: 

This letter report presents the first portion of the analysis conducted by the Bureau of State Audits (bureau) concerning the costs for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (Corrections) to build a new condemned inmate complex (CIC) at San Quentin State Prison (San Quentin). Understanding that Corrections' capital outlay budget change proposal for the new CIC is being discussed during the budget hearings for fiscal year 200809, we are focusing this letter report on the cost to build the CIC at San Quentin. Our second report, scheduled for public release in July 2008, will include cost estimates to build a CIC at alternate locations in California. 

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee (audit committee) asked the bureau to review the original plans and costs for the CIC project and compare them with the current plans and projected costs through the end of construction. To address this request, we obtained the services of a consultant specializing in estimating the cost of prison construction and operations Criminal Justice Institute, Inc.and conducted the following analyses: 

• Reviewed the original project cost plan and compared it to the current project cost plan to determine the cause of the increase. 
• Determined whether the estimated costs of the current project are reasonable. 
• Determined whether the size of the proposed CIC would meet Corrections' needs 20 years into the future. 
• Assessed the financial impact of further delays on the cost of the CIC project. 

In 2003 the Legislature approved Corrections' request for $220 million to build a new CIC at San Quentin. According to Corrections, however, before construction could begin, the cost of the project increased significantly due to increases in the cost of construction materials, design changes, the need to address environmental concerns, and unforeseen costs, such as those to mitigate soil problems. To minimize these increases, Corrections modified its plan several times and eventuallyreduced the size of the complex from eight housing units to six and from 1,024 cells to 768 cells. Despite the 25 percent reduction in the size of the CIC, Corrections now estimates the cost of the project at $356 million, an increase of $136 million, or 62 percent. 

Analyses by our consultant suggest that the cost to construct the CIC will exceed Corrections' recent estimate. Although Corrections reasonably estimated construction costs, it was precluded from applying realistic escalation rates, and delays from the anticipated start date will add to project costs. Additionally, Corrections did not include the costs to activate and operate the CIC in its estimated costs. Our consultant estimates that the cost to construct the CIC will exceed Corrections' estimate of $356 million by $39.3 million and that the cost to activate the new CIC will reach $7.3 million. Furthermore, our consultant estimates that the average new staffing costs to operate the new CIC will average $58.8 million per year, for a total of approximately $1.2 billion over the next 20 years. 

Corrections currently plans to double-cell (placing two inmates in one cell) certain condemned inmates to maximize the CIC's capacity; however, our consultant and other experts we spoke with raised concerns with this proposal. Specifically, the experts stated that capital cases often contain very personal, private, and sensitive materials and that doublecelling raises serious concerns about maintaining confidentiality during the preparation to defend a condemned inmate during the appeal process. In addition, our consultant expressed concern that doublecelling increases the risk of harm to the inmates who are housed together, particularly for long periods of time. If doublecelling condemned inmates occurs as planned, we estimate that the CIC's 1,152-inmate capacity will be reached in 2035; however, if the plan to double-cell inmates is not a feasible approach, the CIC will reach capacity in 2014, less than three years after it is expected to open. 

The audit committee also asked us to review the alternative sites considered by Corrections and determine whether the cost/benefit analysis for each site considered all relevant factors. In our report 2003-130, titled California Department of Corrections: Its Plans to Build a New Condemned-Inmate Complex at San Quentin Are Proceeding, but Its Analysis of Alternative Locations and Costs Was Incomplete, issued in March 2004, we concluded that Corrections did not consider all feasible locations and relevant costs in making its decision to build the CIC at San Quentin. Our followup review found that Corrections has not performed any additional analyses of alternatives since we published the previous report. 

We were also asked to address other issues that we intend to include in our second report, scheduled for public release in July 2008. Specifically, the audit committee asked us to identify and analyze alternative sites, including assessing the relative benefits and costs associated with constructing a CIC at San Quentin compared with the benefits and costs of constructing it elsewhere, as well as evaluating the possibility of using the currently proposed CIC site at San Quentin for other purposes. We were asked to consider factors such as the alternate sites' capital outlay costs; projected expenditures for ongoing maintenance and operations; and access and proximity to state and federal courts, legal counsel, medical care, and condemned inmates' families. Our analysis will also include, for locations where doing so would be feasible, the cost of constructing six two-story buildings to house condemned inmates in a CIC at each location, including San Quentin, versus constructing three four-story "stacked" buildings to house condemned inmates, as currently proposed by Corrections. Finally, we were asked to compare the cost of constructing a CIC in California with other states' costs to construct the same type of facility. 


Click here for: 

Fact Sheet in PDF Format 
http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/factsheets/2007-120.1.pdf 

Report in PDF Format 
http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2007-120.1.pdf 


For questions regarding the contents of this report, please contact 
Margarita Fernandez, Chief of Public Affairs, at (916) 445-0255. 


California State Auditor 
Bureau of State Audits 
555 Capitol Mall, Suite 300 
Sacramento, California 95814 
916.445.0255 or TTY 916.445.0033