The Arizona Legislature, which has never been shy about enacting laws that enlarge the prison population, should provide adequate funding this year to ensure the safety of the officers and inmates in those institutions.

The inmate population, which stands at 33,887, declined slightly last spring but has risen steadily since the summer. As the prison population increased, the number of correctional officers decreased.

More prisoners and fewer officers equals danger. Arizona Department of Corrections Director Dora Schriro notes that on some overnight shifts, there is only one officer for 150 inmates. That should be a matter of concern for everyone.

Theoretically, the Legislature tried to improve this situation last summer by increasing correctional officer pay by $1,410. But the increase did practically nothing to close the gap between state salaries for correctional officers and the amount paid for comparable positions by cities, counties and the federal government.

There is a limited pool of employees with any interest in working in prisons. Most prisons are located in areas where there are few amenities. Employees with families are not eager to live in those locations, and commuting from Tucson or Phoenix to towns like Florence can be costly because of the high price of gasoline.

But prisons need to be adequately staffed, and it's up to the Legislature to make that possible.

If the Legislature is truly interested in public safety, it will allocate enough money to make correctional officer pay competitive with salaries that city and county governments in Arizona pay for similar positions.

The starting salary for a correctional officer in the state prison system is $29,014. The same position in Maricopa County jails starts at $31,179. In Pima County, as of April 2, the same position starts at $33,696. In the federal Bureau of Prisons, the position pays $38,272.

The Corrections Department wants to increase starting pay for its officers to $34,650, which would make the state competitive with the other jurisdictions.

As Schriro put it in a meeting last week with the Star's editorial board, "We really need a significant, comprehensive remedy and we need it now."

This year's budget for corrections stands at $742.8 million. In Gov. Janet Napolitano's budget for 2007, the department is slated for $862.6 million, which includes a one-time allocation of $39 million just to fix the disparities in starting pay levels for correctional officers. "If the Legislature approved it we wouldn't have to go back to them next year" for additional salary increases, a spokesman said.

However, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, or JLBC, which prepares the Legislature's budget, is proposing $784.1 million for the department. Inevitably, the JLBC and the Governor's Office will negotiate a figure somewhere in between.

Schriro says this year would be the perfect time to fix the pay problems in corrections because the state is anticipating a budget surplus of approximately $1 billion.

We agree, but we also recognize that every special interest group in the state is aware of the projected surplus and is lobbying for a piece of it. The most important special interest group, however, consists of the Republicans who control both houses of the Legislature.

Two legislators crucial to solving the corrections problems are Sen. Robert "Bob" Burns, R-Peoria, and Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, chairmen, respectively, of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees. Both lawmakers believe the state can save money by moving more inmates into private prisons, a belief disproved by a report issued last month by MAXIMUS Inc., a national consulting firm. The consultants compared costs of operating low- and medium-security private prisons with the same level of state prisons and found that the state's costs were 8.5 percent to 13.5 percent less than those of the private prisons.

Lawmakers should not allow pre-conceived ideas about privatization to cloud their judgment when examining these numbers.

More importantly, they should not turn the debate over privatization into an excuse to ignore the serious pay problems within the Corrections Department.