Yikes! Recently read where the Kansas Corrections Department in 2007 had a budget of $296.6 million and 3,240 employees. Seems like a lot of money and people to watch over a mere 8,696 inmates. It is in fact one employee and $92,090.00 for every 2.7 inmates.
By comparison, Kansas water resource programs receive about $8 million annually from the state to fund and implement the state's water plan - in the very best of years (much less of late). I can't help concluding how undervalued Kansas water is to the state. Without it, there'd certainly be no prisons to maintain - or anything else for that matter.
And as if things were'nt bad enough. Governor Parkinson just clipped the state agencies (including the water agencies) even more because projected revenue income is dwindling. I have to ask: How can revenues ever increase when basic infrastructure, including water resources, are not maintained?
I say parole the prisoners, retrain them to work in the water resources field and with the corrections savings fund the state water plan comensurate with its fundamental importance. Ah,,, if only things were that simple.
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