A recent study by University of Utah professors found no clear advantage to privatizing prisons, in terms of either cost or benefits. The Desert Morning News has the story (via the AFSCME privatization blog):

Privatizing Utah's prison system would have no clear cost advantages, according to an independent study that was presented to lawmakers on Wednesday.

The study by the University of Utah's School of Social Work and Criminal Justice Center compared existing studies conducted in other states that have both private and public prisons and found "no clear empirical advantage or disadvantage to privatize."

Study co-author Brad Lundahl told members of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee that the majority of private prison facilities are medium- to minimum-security facilities. Arguments for privatization, he said, would be reducing costs while maintaining quality of service. Arguments against the issue would be ethical concerns and risks that security would be compromised.

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More evidence that state budgets are facing new pressures, and that budget cuts have consequences, from David Sirota:

Thanks to budget cuts, Colorado's DMV is now totally understaffed. In 2003, the agency was forced to shut down 25 facilities. Those that remain are chronically overburdened. As the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, lines "are so long that people report spending all day at a driver's license office."

But that is just where it starts.

The Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute notes that the state now ranks 39th in highway spending per capita, and the libertarian Reason Foundation points out that Colorado has among the most poorly maintained roads in America. Not surprisingly, national traffic surveys say Denver has developed some of the nation's worst congestion, with drivers having to waste an average of 51 hours a year commuting.

And from the LA Times:

But the budget signed by the governor last month wipes out $10 million allotted to Los Angeles County this fiscal year for outreach efforts to help low-income families register their children for medical insurance.

The fate of another $10 million for the next fiscal year remains uncertain. The three-year program was initially projected to funnel about $70 million to 20 high-need counties, with about one-third going to Los Angeles.

These small-scale efforts were expected to help enroll 25,000 L.A. County children and teenagers in government healthcare programs each year. Of the 2 million uninsured people in the county, an estimated 200,000 are children, said Suzanne Bostwick, acting director of the Children's Health Outreach Initiative, part of the county Department of Public Health.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a slumping housing market has many states facing budget crises.

Tremors from the housing market's slump are straining the budgets of state and local governments from coast to coast, sending officials scrambling to plug gaps.

Rising defaults on subprime home loans are boosting the inventory of unsold homes and driving sale prices lower. That's cutting into housing-related revenues from building-permit fees, taxes on contracting and recording property transfers, and even sales taxes.

As a result, legislators in Florida, which was at the forefront of the housing boom, plan a special session this month to consider deep budget cuts to offset a projected $1.5 billion funding gap. California forecasts a shortfall of at least $5 billion in next year's budget. And Chicago faces a $217 million gap in its $5.6 billion budget for 2008.

The whole article is worth a read. One gaffe- it calls the Tax Foundation "nonpartisan," which, while techinically true, is less appropriate than a label like "conservative" or "an organization dedicated to lowering taxes."