Gov. Ron DeSantis is requesting the Legislature provide hundreds of millions of dollars for the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) in his proposed fiscal year 2026-2027 budget, but a Democratic state senator says that is woefully inadequate.
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando made the remarks following a budget presentation by FDC Secretary Ricky Dixon before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice on Wednesday.
Specifically, FDC is asking for $374 million to raise base pay for corrections officers, probation officers, inspectors, and non-uniformed staff from $22 an hour to $28 an hour.
Dixon told the committee that it’s “the most significant pay increase I’ve seen in three decades in this business,” adding that it will “make a major impact” on retaining corrections officers, who often leave the department to work for other law enforcement agencies that pay higher wages.
But, citing a 2023 report that found that the state’s prison agency path was “unsustainable,” Smith acknowledged that Dixon can’t ask for more than what the governor is asking for, but that his agency needs more funding to survive.
“He needs much more … and he’s not able to ask for that,” he said, referencing the detailed blueprint by global consulting firm KPMG, which estimated the department needs between $6 billion and nearly $12 billion to repair buildings and construct new facilities, with hundreds of millions more needed to pay for staffing.
“That doesn’t even include the cost of new dorms that are existing prison locations. It doesn’t include new construction for facilities to accommodate the growing prison population,” Smith said.
“We have to remember as we are looking at this large request, rightfully so, that there are young 20-something year-olds with no experience who are watching over hundreds of men by themselves. Because they have no staff. We have a whole fleet of vehicles at the Department of Corrections that is way below the DMS [Department of Management Services] standard. They’re breaking down full of incarcerated people. That’s dangerous.”
Dixon told the same committee in November that Florida houses more than 89,000 inmates, a population that has increased by more than 10,000 since 2021. He added that the number is expected to rise by another 4,100 over the next three years.
“If we’re going to be a ‘tough on a crime state’, we have to understand what that means dollars and cents on the back end of being tough on crime, with an aging and overflowing prison population,” Smith added.
The governor’s proposed budget for the corrections system includes:
- $56.7 million for an additional 500 full-time security positions.
- $56 million to fund construction of new housing units.
- $48 million for ongoing modernization of FDC’s data systems.
- $18.8 million for critical security equipment such as body scanners and body-worn cameras.
- $5.5 million to upgrade and replace aging state vehicles.
- $3.5 million for expanding FDC’s intelligence capabilities using modern technologies that help officers and staff identify and eliminate contraband from the state prison system.
- $3.3 million to replace radios, radio towers, and associated systems at multiple institutions.
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
Deborah Coffey says
It just blows your mind! How much more convincing of the facts do today’s Republicans need to see that their party, because of its priorities, has become a failure in governing…almost a complete failure…at the local, state and federal levels? The GOP is falling apart because it has strayed so far from its core values that used to be just right of center. I hope there are enough “real” Republicans left to save it and return it to what used to be sanity…not to mention including a love and respect for our Constitution.
Dusty says
Surely there are more savings to be had emptying death row? No need to wait thirty plus years for justice.
R.S. says
That’s a very cruel and uninformed comment, Dusty. You either save money and risk killing the wrong people. Or you spend money for a long process that wants to make sure that the right person is being killed and still may end up killing the wrong people. The kinder system always wins out: Consider that Scandinavian countries have a recidivism rate of 20 percent while we here in the US of A have a recidivism rate of 70 percent. Violent offenders have a maximal incarceration rate of 25 years. Look up Anders Behring Breivik’s sentence; if at the end of those 25 years he’s still considered dangerous, he’ll be held in psychological confinement and treatment. Consider also that states WITH the death penalty have a greater incidence rate of violent crime that states without it.
R.S. says
The home of the brave and the free has more people incarcerated than any other country in this world. We have about 6 percent of the world’s population; we have about 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population. There’s one heck of a lot to be done to reduce the number of the jailed people by improving social equity, providing healthcare, improving the distribution of resources, and so much more that could be done. Jailing for drug use makes no sense whatsoever. Counseling and reducing the criminalization of drug use and sale, all would help reduce the inmate population. If our representatives would worry less about sharia law, annexation of other countries, and which books are on the shelves of libraries and focus more on essential social improvements, this budget would reduce immensely. In addition, why are we not stopping to think of penalties and think of jails and prisons as institutions of learning? Also that would be a giant step forward.