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By KYLA KI G
By AARON M. FONTANA
c. Iml News Service
LANSING - Officials are not
posjtive if it is a fluke that the
once soaring costs of prisons are
slowing down - But they are
keeping their fingers crossed.
Gov. John Engler's fiscal year
1994-95 budget recommenda-
tion for the ' nt of Cor-
r ns pent
growth fro y 994,
. much below the 16.6 percent av-
erage of the 1980s. '
"And 1994 will have a bigger
increase than there will be in '95,
said Mark Murray, deputy state
budget director. One answer is
that prison admissions have
slowed considerably, said War­
ren Williams, spokesperson for
the Department of Corrections.
He noted that the Depart­
ment of Corrections saw about a
14 percent drop in prison admis­
sions during fiscal year 1993.
In addition, 1995's expected
'prison population growth of
1,100 would be the smallest in­
crease since 1985, according to
Michigan's executive budget for
the fiscal year 1994-95. There is
an expected increase of 1,300 for
the current budget year 1994.
·We're 0 taking advantage
of the fact that e've got a uni­
versity an attractive magnet
to locate near," Engler said.
Schwarz said the subcommit­
tee is conducting hearing
throughout the state with Michi­
gan public university repre-
entatives to discuss
appropriations for their institu­
tions ..
Three ubcommittee mem­
bers heard testimony Feb. 11 in
o
CH p SID v0-
n " pl n that would
ChaDa the C\l11'8Ilt funding ya­
tam or 1994.
Sch n id und r t
planall18 tateuni raiti
ra t I lthat
nt funding minimum. T
minimum range from about
3,500 to $8,000 per pupil.
Kathleen Tinney, EMU is-
tant executive vice pr ident,
said revamping the funding ys­
tem ould allow universities to
provide lower tuition increases
to udents.
inney said EMU's appro­
priation per student is smaller
than any other state institution
eEept Grand Valley State Uni­
versity and at $3,342 is 1,243
under the tate average of
$4,545 for all universities and
405 under the state average of
8,747 for non-research institu­
tions.
ACCORDING TO' the
budget, factors contributing to
the reduction of the prison popu­
lation include local and state­
wide diversion effcrts , a
reduction in jail crowding, a de­
crease in felony arrests and a
return of drug-related convic­
tions to pre-1987 levels.
Mel Grieshaber, state vice
president and legislative coordi­
nator for th Michigan Correc­
tions Organization, the labor
union for state corrections offi­
cers, agreed that the prison
population slow-down has co�­
tributed to a lower budget. Gri­
eshaber added that the prison
population will continue to grow,
however.
According to the budget, the
prison population will continue
rising because of increased man­
datory minimum sentences and.
other increases in the length of
sentences. Another reason for
the growth is a decrease of pris­
oners on electronic monitoring,
or h ring,
According to he budget, this
decrease in tethering has arisen
from a reduction of prisoners eli­
gible for th "zero tolerance" pro­
gram, which r turns prisoners
promptly to jail if they do not
follow clos ly the her rules.
wnliams r mm nded waiting
- a year to s if this decline in,
prison population is a fluke or
not.
GRI H ER ADD D
ana h r n for the proposed
reduction in he budget: "The'
building boom of prisons has
Old U.S. cities
remain segregated
By YURI KAGEY AMA
Aa.ocla"d Pre .. Wrltw
DETROIT (AP) - Segrega­
tion has retained a grip on many
of America's older cities, while
two North Carolina cities have
been named among the most in­
tegrated in America, a U niver­
sity of Michigan study shows.
Integration has moved into
the newer, economically grow­
ingcities in the West and South
that were attracting an influx of
younger and middle-class
Blacks. The study compared
data from the 1980 and 1990
U.S. CeIlSU:8.
"The bigger engine (toward
desegregation) is the eoonomy,"
William Frey, one of the study's
researchers, .said Monday.
"There are parts of the country
where there has been a long his­
tory of segregation. The patterns
are already in place. "
The study reports larger cit­
ies, like Detroit and Chicago,
have been relatively untouched
by new laws banning housing
discrimination.
ROBERT NEWBY, a sociol­
ogy professor at Central Michi­
gan Univer i�, said living
conditions for Blacks in the
older.ideclining cities had wors­
ened in the last 20 years because
of the flight of the middle-class,
infrastructure and jobs. "There
isn't anything that can turn that
around. I don't anything that
will attract people back to the
city," he id.
The study, published in this
month's American Sociological
Review, compared the U.S. Cen­
sus segregation index for 232
metropolises. The index range
from 0 to 100, with 100 repre-
nting total segregation and 0
for complete integration.
The least gregated cities
were Jacksonville, N.C., at 81,
followed by Lawton, Okla., with
37, then Anchorage, Ala., with
38.' Fayetteville, N.C., wa�
fourth at 41, tied with,
Lawrence, Kan.
Overall change in the last
decade was modest. The verage
'segregation index dropped from
69 in 1980 to 65 in 1990.
"There has been � great
change in attitudes among
whites. But there has been a
much slower change among
whites to accept Blacks as
neighbors," said Reynolds Far­
ley, a researcher who oversaw
the study.
In a 1992 attitude survey of
750 whites in the Detroit metro­
politan area, Farley found that
29 percent said they would leave
a neighborhood that was one­
third Black.
In a comparable stu-dy in
1976, 41 percent said they would
leave. The survey's margin of'er­
ror was 1.5 to 2 percent.
THE RESEARCHERS said
the progress in integration, al­
though gradual, was significant,
because it countered a wide­
spread perception there had
been no progress at all. "Small
silver linings exist in some cit­
ies. And that's good news," Frey
said.
Gary, I nd. with a segregation
index of 91 and Detroit with 89
topped the list for the most seg­
regated cities. They were fol­
lowed by Chicago, Cleveland,
Buffalo, N.Y., Flint, Mich., and
Saginaw, Mich., in that order.
Th citi with a large por-
tion of housing built after the
Fair Hou ing Act of 1968 - in­
cluding Orlando, Fla. and Phoe­
nix, Ariz. - had greater
integration.
6 - 'policy,
S . d EMU would
funding on.student
rollm t growth.
Ho r, Schwarz . d la
mak auld not be looking at
funding plan based on enroll­
ment.
"That' a ind of formula
funding based on tudent num­
bers," Schwarz said. "On you
do that you always ha institu-·
tions who 'game the system'."
Norm Schlafman, Wayne vice
president for government af­
fairs, said legislators need to
consider a number of different
factor hen talking about
higher education funding re­
form.
There real.Jy is no way to de-
o
have ulted in savings of al­
most $194 million through fiscal
year 1994, according to the
budget.
The increasing acceptance of
the Office of Community Coriec­
tio has also helped reduce the
budget, Williams said.
THE OFFICE OF Commu-
The primary function of the
agency is to divert fun from
expensive prison beds to local
functions, including substance
, abuse programs aM community
service programs for 1 er of­
fenders, Williams said.
After four years of 'double
digit growth, the flow of newly
sentenced felons is decreasing
. . b
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