At a time when Governor Rick Scott is begging businesses to come to Florida, some Republicans want to shut down a $70 million-dollar-a -year Florida corporation that cranks out everything from custom office furniture to false teeth.
The fight is over inmate work programs, and it’s getting heated.
The Legislature created PRIDE Enterprises in 1981 to busy idle hands and give inmates marketable skills for life on the outside. Private industry has been complaining about unfair competition ever since.
And House Judiciary Chairman Charles McBurney of Jacksonville is listening. Here he is unloading on PRIDE in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee earlier this week.
“We had member, after member, after member who came to me and said there are problems in my district because of what PRIDE is doing, whether it’s taking money off the tax rolls, whether it’s competing against private industries, whether it’s complaints about exorbitant salaries, and so forth.”
McBurney’s bill would get rid of the non-profit corporation and put the Department of Corrections in charge in inmate work programs. A seven-member appointed board that includes private industry, would oversee everything.
It would be a big job. In 2014, PRIDE trained nearly 4,000 inmates in 41 programs at 29 prisons. PRIDE runs dental and vision labs, manufactures park benches and office furniture and is involved in cattle ranching and sugar growing.
PRIDE lobbyist and general counsel Wilbur Brewton reminded committee members that PRIDE gets no state funding and he insisted its programs are working.
“We have a 10.1 percent recidivism rate. Our starting wages is over 10 dollars and such for every inmate who leaves, 78 percent of all of our participants get full-time jobs when they leave.”
A staff analysis mentions audits in 2003 that accused the PRIDE board of poor bookkeeping and overpaying managers. The analysis says PRIDE quote, “has had historical problems with transparency and financial management.”
Brewton says the problems have long been fixed. McBurney declined to be interviewed for the story and it’s not clear why he is targeting PRIDE now. Here’s what he told the committee.
“Serious concerns over the last number of years have been raised concerning improper use of state assets, competition with the private sector, exorbitant salaries, whether skills taught are transferrable, the number of inmates in the program, transparency and financial management.”
The Florida Smart Justice Alliance is on the record supporting the bill. But it’s not unusual for the group, which is backed by the conservative Associated Industries of Florida, to side with Republican leadership.
McBurney’s complaint that PRIDE slots are going to the wrong inmates is an old one. Former Department of Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough says he resigned from PRIDE’s board in frustration in the late 200s after failing to be able to fix that problem.
“I actually discovered that you had some people working in jobs that were never getting out of prison. They were in for life. But they had good skills and PRIDE managed to make use of those skills.”
McDonough says PRIDE management objected when he tried to remove lifers from the program. Brewton says PRIDE has to take the workers the department gives it.
The staff analysis notes PRIDE doesn’t have to pay unemployment compensation for its workers and that it enjoys the same protections from lawsuits that governments do. The concept is called sovereign immunity.
The analysis also cites state laws that require state purchasing officers to buy from PRIDE if its products are quote, “similar” in quality to private competitors.
But Brewton says government purchasing managers still have, and often use, broad discretion to pick private competitors.
“The point being, nobody is mandating anybody to do anything.”
McBurney’s bill cleared the committee with only a single negative vote but its fate is still far from certain. A Senate companion has yet to move.
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