Prisons Short-Changed

A warning that the state prison system will run out of money next year comes from a state senator who has several prisons in his district. Moniteau County Senator Larry Rohrbach is a member of the Senate appropriations committee. He says the state corrections budget has been planned as if the system had 25-thousand inmates. But it already has more than 27,000. The Legislature will be able to make an emergency appropriation early next year to keep the corrections department’s bills paid, if Rohrbach’s forecast comes true.