Supporters make case for Work Camp

LINCOLN -- A McCook woman said the Work Ethic Camp performed a miracle in her family.

"The judge sent two of my boys to the Work Ethic Camp and the Work Ethic Camp sent two miracles home to me," Linda Albrecht told the Legislature's Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

"It would be a great disservice to our community and our state if you were to close this facility," she said.

Albrecht was among 18 McCook residents who made a trip to Lincoln Tuesday to ask lawmakers to take the McCook facility off the state's chopping block. Albrecht told the committee she had two sons who had gone through the program. During her testimony her voice echoed strong emotion as she told the committee how her sons had been sentenced to the program as a result of methamphetamine charges.

"I do not approve of or condone what they have done," she said, but because of the program, one of her sons completed his General Education Diploma while staying at WEC, she told them, and now has the opportunity to go to college. Both are now gainfully employed.

The preliminary budget from the Legislature's Appropriations Committee suggests closing the 100-bed camp to help the state deal with its $692 million budget shortfall.

While the state argues closing the facility will save the state $6.3 million, Greg Wolford of McCook said closing the facility would actually cost the state more in the long run.

Wolford said the cost to incarcerate one prisoner at the State Penitentiary for an average stay of 25 months costs the state about $50,370, while an average stay of 126 days at the Work Ethic Camp costs the state $11,173.

Sentencing an offender to the Work Ethic Camp, rather than the penitentiary would save the state around $39,000 per inmate, Wolford told the committee.

Wolford said the state penal system is at 131 percent capacity and continues to add an average of 300 inmates per year.

"In 25 months WEC can rehabilitate 625 inmates. If the Legislature wants to save money long-term, they need to consider adding on to the Work Ethic Camp, not closing it," Wolford told the committee.

Nebraska Department of Corrections Director Harold Clarke said his department looked at every option before proposing the closing of the McCook facility and a youth facility in Omaha.

Clarke said his department can either cut entire programs or make cuts across the board. Currently, he said, the department is working on "muscle and bones" and staffing for the corrections system is at a bare minimum and can't be cut any further. He said that another option might be cutting programs, but the only programs being offered through the corrections department for the inmates are substance abuse and mental health treatment which total about $5.3 million, still leaving about $6 million to be eliminated from the department budget.

State Sen. John Synowiecki of Omaha concentrated on the fact that the McCook facility had not reached full capacity during two years of operation.

Clarke told him there are "plenty of offenders out there for this facility." He said the problem appeared to be in the sentencing of the offenders. "Probation officers and judges need to work together. "We don't have to look under the bushes to find the right offenders for this facility."

Another local resident who has had direct contact with offenders from the facility also testified in favor of keeping the facility open.

Eldon Fuller, who drives the Dash-About bus service to Omaha, said he has bussed some of the offenders back to Omaha after they left the facility.

"The boys said they hated McCook and never wanted to go back, but they knew if they had liked it it wouldn't have done them any good."

"It presented the kind of challenge they had never had." Raleigh Haas, superintendent of the facility, said this morning during a conference call with Sen. Tom Baker of Trenton, "everyone was real supportive of the program. It all comes down to the money."

Baker said he had the opportunity to talk to Sen. Roger Wehrbein of Plattsmouth following the committee hearing and believes Wehrbein is confident the Work Ethic Camp will be put back in the budget.

He told Chad Hutchins of the McCook probation office he believed LB46, which is calling for more community based corrections, not only provides overwhelming support for the camp, but emphasizes the need to keep it and even expand it.

Baker said the corrections department could look at closing a wing at the Lincoln facility. He also said the corrections department most likely has some money "stashed" from vacancy savings since corrections is not fully staffed and the money has been appropriated for the jobs.

"We still have a couple of options," he told members of the McCook Chamber of Commerce Legislative Committee.