Close Nevada State Prison and save money, director says

Closing the old Nevada State Prison is the most cost-effective way to save money in the state's next two-year budget cycle, according to Director of Corrections Howard Skolnik.

Closing NSP, located in Carson City,, would save $19 million a year. While that's a potential loss of some 200 jobs, Skolnik told a state commission studying law enforcement and judicial system issues that he's trying to help employees get job transfers to other prisons.

The prison director said Monday that a major problem with the century-old prison is that more than 200 staffers are needed to supervise 900 inmates. He noted that at the newer High Desert Correctional Center in southern Nevada, it takes only 122 staffers to manage 1,200 inmates.

"As we have developed new designs for our cell houses, we have increased effectiveness per staff," he told the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice.

Skolnik also said his proposed budget for the two-year budget period starting in July 2009 proposes to close rural Nevada camps in Pioche and Tonopah that are used to house minimum-security inmates. That would save the state about $3 million a year.

The prison director agreed with commission members that the camp closures would hurt the rural communities, noting there are 30 jobs at the 212-inmate camp in Pioche, and 20 to 25 jobs at the 146-inmate camp in Tonopah.

Skolnik said the closures, which must be approved by the 2009 Legislature, are needed to meet a 14 percent budget reduction sought by Gibbons because of declining tax revenues.

The commission also was told by public defenders that, contrary to an August report claiming Nevada judges imposed illegal sentences in more than 12 percent of cases, a review of those cases found almost no errors.

The issue developed after consultants examined 10,871 criminal cases. Matt Leone of the University of Nevada's Sawyer Justice Center had defended the report in August, but conceded Monday that he and other researchers had questions about the data, believing there must be something else in play.

After public defenders made a more thorough review, they found some typographical errors but no sentences that were outside the statutory mandates for the crimes involved.

"Zero," said Justice James Hardesty, who heads the commission.