LOWERING SUPERVISION OF CRIMINALS COST MORE THAN JUST DOLLARS AND CENTS, BUDGET WRITERS TOLD

AT RIGHT: Ginger Richardson, Local 308, and Federation Lobbyist Matt Zuvich testifying April 4 against ESSB 5288.

House budget writers got a dose of reality Saturday as the Federation continued its session-long fight against ESSB 5288, the bill to cut Community Corrections supervision of 12,000 dangerous criminals.

The hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee came a day before the Tacoma News Tribune verified what the Federation had been telling legislators all session long: Budget plans and ESSB 5288 would cut more than half of all Community Corrections officers and endanger community safety.

“I think when you start cutting half the forces that are protecting the public with offenders getting out of prison, you’re flirting with disaster in that area,” Federation Lobbyist Matt Zuvich told the committee.

Zuvich said the bill and the House budget would take more than 300 Community Corrections officers off the street.

“That in effect is half the public safety component workforce of Community Corrections,” Zuvich said. “I ask you, if you had a bill before you today that took half the State Patrol troopers off the street, would you do it?

Ginger Richardson, president of King County State Corrections Local 308, told the committee the bill and the budget assumptions are based on a faulty assessment tool that misclassifies high-risk offenders as low- and moderate-risk offenders who would no longer have supervision.

“So, are you putting the community at risk in passing this legislation?” Richardson asked. “You bet, without a doubt.”

The Federation is fighting to save Community Corrections officers’ jobs because what they do makes a difference.

“Community supervision does work,” Richardson said. “I know because I work there on the front line. And it takes that human intervention to be able to sit down with an offender and make the cognitive thought process and change happen and make that person change.”