Legislator Wants Inquiry Into Plan to Reopen Prisons

SACRAMENTO — State Sen. Gloria Romero on Monday called on the Bureau of State Audits to investigate the Schwarzenegger administration’s decision to reopen two private prisons, one of which employed a consultant and lobbyists close to the governor’s inner circle.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger awarded a no-bid $3.5-million contract to a Florida firm to reopen a 244-bed private lockup in the Central Valley this month, a year after his administration closed the facility. The firm, the GEO Group Inc., hired former Schwarzenegger associates in 2004 to lobby the administration for the business.

Correctional Properties Trust, the company that owns the prison and leases it to GEO, appointed Schwarzenegger’s former finance director, Donna Arduin, to its board 10 days after she left the state payroll. The Department of Finance oversees all state spending.

Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, said in a statement Monday that such arrangements add to the “perception that state government is a revolving door.”

Arduin said in an interview last week that there was no conflict of interest between her former job and her position on the Correctional Properties Trust board. She noted that the state’s contract is with GEO and that GEO and Correctional Properties are separate entities.

J.P. Tremblay, assistant secretary of California’s Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, said Monday that the state opted to reopen the prison in the Central Valley town of McFarland and another in Bakersfield because of an unexpected increase in the number of inmates. The state closed the facilities at the end of 2003, citing a drop in inmate population.

“It is not an insider deal,” Tremblay said. “This was based on management’s decision to find beds.”

Romero, who chairs committees that oversee prisons, also serves on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, which must approve her request for the review. Such investigations generally take months.