Scottsdale: Arizona Lawmakers Push $1.5 Million for Prison Oversight Office as Budget Deal Near

The money behind the mandate

Arizona passed a law last year creating an independent office to oversee state prisons. The state has not put any money behind it.

Lawmakers and criminal justice advocates are pressing for $1.5 million in the upcoming state budget to fund the Independent Correctional Oversight Office. Without that appropriation, the office created by Senate Bill 1507 remains paper only.

The funding request has been absent from every budget proposal this session. Gov. Katie Hobbs left it out of her executive budget. The Legislature's budget, which Hobbs vetoed in early May, also skipped the line item.

What the office would do

SB 1507 was sponsored by Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, and signed into law by the governor in July of last year. The office would monitor the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

A director appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature would lead the office. Staff would have broad access to department records and facilities. The office would maintain a complaint hotline, track inmate deaths and assaults, and publish annual reports on conditions of confinement.

"When you are basically a ward of the state, you should be making sure that things are moving pretty fluidly inside the prison walls and not having fights breaking out, people getting murdered," Bolick said. "The issue is not going away."

Why it matters now

The push for funding gained urgency after a federal judge ordered the department's health care system under receivership in April. Advocates point to worsening conditions, staff complaints, and inmate lawsuits as evidence that oversight is needed.

John Fabricius, executive director of Praxis Initiative and a former inmate, described the department as a system in crisis.

"It is not a rehabilitative engine. It is a mess, and it is a morass that you have to navigate and survive, and it is getting exponentially worse," Fabricius said. "We can't kick the can down the road anymore, we're out of road."

The budget math

The corrections department operates on an annual budget of roughly $1.6 billion. Advocates say the $1.5 million oversight request is a small fraction of that total.

Estrella Lopez, senior state policy manager for Justice Action Network, noted the scale of the ask relative to the department's spending.

"You can find $1.5 million when you're talking about a $1.6 billion budget," Lopez said. "If you look at the scale of it, kind of."

Budget director Ben Henderson told the Joint Appropriations Committee in January that the governor was open to a conversation about funding the office.

What happens if the budget falls through

Bolick built a fallback into SB 1507. The legislation allows the corrections oversight fund to accept federal funding, private grants, gifts, and contributions if legislative appropriations are unavailable.

Bolick said she has spoken with nonprofit groups about pooling resources. Lopez said stakeholders have not yet actively pursued alternative funding.

"The fact that it hasn't been in any of the versions so far, I'm not taking that as an indication that all parties won't come together and fund this important issue," Lopez said.

The appropriation bills introduced by Bolick and Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, passed their respective chambers unanimously this session. Both still need to be included in a final budget deal.

With Hobbs and Senate President Warren Petersen saying a budget agreement is within reach ahead of the July 1 deadline, advocates are watching to see whether prison oversight makes the final cut.

"It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," Fabricius said.