SAN FRANCISCO The federal receiver charged with bringing California's prison health care system up to constitutional muster turned up the heat on state decision makers this week.
In legal filings, J. Clark Kelso, the receiver, said that if lawmakers don't sign off soon on a $7 billion lease-revenue bond financing plan, he's preparing to obtain a court order to take the money from the cash-strapped state government.
Kelso was appointed by the federal judge who ordered the prison hospital system into a receivership after ruling that the state had not moved quickly enough to implement a 2002 settlement agreement in a case brought challenging the constitutional adequacy of health care services provided to inmates.
This week, the judge, Thelton Henderson of the U.S. District Court for the northern district of California, approved Kelso's latest turnaround action plan, which includes the $7 billion in capital projects. Kelso also submitted a quarterly report to the judge, criticizing California officials for foot-dragging in implementing the plan.
A bill to authorize the lease-revenue bonds was defeated in the state Senate in May, failing to obtain the required two-thirds majority because of opposition from the Republican caucus.
Kelso's report criticized the California Legislative Analyst's Office for releasing what it describes as an inaccurate report on the receiver's prison health care program, providing the Republicans with cover to vote against it.
According to the report, further discussions with the offices of the governor, controller, and treasurer have also been fruitless.
"The receiver is now forced to take certain actions in federal court preparatory to a direct order securing funds," Kelso's report said.
The state's failure to make the financial commitment is "a result of conscious, deliberate obstruction by key decision-makers and decision-influencers resulting in a willful failure by the state to live up to its constitutional and court-ordered obligations," Kelso wrote in the quarterly report.
Kelso's preference was to work with lawmakers to secure lease-revenue bonds that would defer the budget strain, particularly as repayments would not take effect until the facilities open, said a spokesman for the California Prison Health Care Receivership.
"He's going through all the avenues to obtain state funding in the hope it can be obtained with bonds to lessen the blow on the state budget," said Luis Patino. "If needs be, he'll take the action that he must."
Such a court order to encumber state funds would come at a difficult time for a state government that appears gridlocked on how to plug a $15 billion budget deficit next year and is facing a cash crunch that will require $10 billion of external borrowing by September.
"We have every confidence that this will be worked out in a way that will be minimally disruptive to the state's budget situation and the state's cash condition," H.D. Palmer, finance spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said yesterday. "The fact that the Senate didn't approve the lease-revenue bonds wasn't the last word on this issue."
