Georgia’s $1.8 Billion Corrections Budget: Healthcare Costs Surge While the State Expands Prison Capacity

Executive Summary

The Governor’s Amended FY 2026 and FY 2027 budget for the Georgia Department of Corrections reveals a system under escalating fiscal pressure — driven primarily by healthcare costs the state has long underfunded and staffing shortages that compromise safety for more than 50,000 people in its custody.

• Total GDC spending reached $1,799,204,979 in amended FY 2026, an $87,137,031 increase over the original budget, with the FY 2027 proposal at $1,778,839,635.
• Healthcare costs are the fastest-growing budget driver, increasing $39,777,721 in FY 2026 and $54,769,710 in FY 2027 — reflecting years of inadequate investment in constitutionally required medical, mental health, and dental care.
• The state is expanding incarceration capacity rather than reducing the population driving these costs: 263 new private prison beds ($4,227,620), five modular correctional units, and increased jail subsidy payments ($6,242,030) to house state prisoners in county jails.
• Correctional officer staffing receives $4,982,902 in FY 2026 and $26,824,134 in FY 2027 to address dangerous staff-to-person ratios — an implicit acknowledgment that understaffing has placed incarcerated people and staff at risk.
• Spending on security technology and surveillance ($13,387,475 in FY 2026) dwarfs investment in rehabilitation: the sole peer-led programming pilot received $150,000.

Key Takeaway: Georgia’s corrections budget is growing rapidly, but spending priorities overwhelmingly favor expanded capacity and security technology over the rehabilitation, healthcare, and reentry programs that reduce recidivism and protect public safety.

Fiscal Impact

Topline Budget Numbers

Georgia taxpayers fund nearly the entire corrections budget from State General Funds — $1,782,435,308 in amended FY 2026, representing approximately 99% of total GDC spending. Federal funds account for just $809,589, and other funds total $15,960,082.

Explosive Spending Growth

Actual GDC expenditures have grown at an unsustainable pace:

FY 2025 expenditures reflect a 25% increase over FY 2024 — a $387,233,950 jump in a single year. This trajectory demands legislative scrutiny.

Where the Money Goes

State Prisons operations consume the majority of every corrections dollar:

Healthcare: The Budget’s Structural Crisis

Healthcare spending is accelerating at a rate that should alarm every appropriator:

• Physical health per diem increases: $10,946,108 in FY 2026 growing to $23,627,395 in FY 2027 — more than doubling year over year
• Outside-the-wire care (hospital and specialist visits): $15,000,000 in FY 2026
• Additional bed-related health costs: $12,923,790 in FY 2026 and $24,253,500 in FY 2027
• Mental health staffing increases: $479,411 in FY 2026 to $1,917,644 in FY 2027
• Dental health staffing increases: $374,587 in FY 2026 to $1,498,347 in FY 2027
• New pharmacy per diem increase: $3,681,328 in FY 2027
• Prior year funds for physical health risk share obligations: $20,402,982 in FY 2026

The Health program budget has grown from $325,613,120 in FY 2024 actual expenditures to a proposed $432,247,728 in FY 2027 — a 33% increase in three years. These escalating costs reflect decades of deferred investment in the health of people the state is constitutionally obligated to care for.

Private Prison Expansion

The state plans to spend $4,227,620 in FY 2027 to add 160 beds at Coffee Correctional Institution and 103 beds at Wheeler Correctional Institution. Total private prison spending rises to $177,767,784 — money flowing to CoreCivic and GEO Group rather than state-operated programming.

Key Takeaway: GDC spending grew 25% in a single year (FY 2024 to FY 2025), with healthcare costs accelerating fastest — physical health per diem increases alone more than doubled from FY 2026 to FY 2027, signaling a structural fiscal crisis rooted in chronic underinvestment.

Key Findings

1. More Than 50,000 People Live Under State Control

The GDC administers prison sentences for more than 50,000 people across a sprawling network of state prisons, county prisons, private prisons, transition centers, probation detention centers, RSAT centers, integrated treatment facilities, and a re-entry facility. Each person in this system requires constitutionally mandated healthcare, food, and housing — obligations the state cannot avoid regardless of budget preferences.

2. The State Compels People to Work

The budget document states plainly: “GDC requires offenders in its facilities to work to support the prison system and the community.” People in Georgia prisons work in farm operations, food preparation, laundry, construction, facility maintenance, and manufacturing in Georgia Correctional Industries plants. This mandatory labor sustains the prison system itself, yet the budget contains no line item for compensation to the people performing it.

3. Dangerous Understaffing Is Being Acknowledged — Not Resolved

The state allocates $4,982,902 in FY 2026 and $26,824,134 in FY 2027 for additional correctional officer positions “to improve staff to offender ratios based on improved retention.” The five-fold increase from one year to the next reveals the severity of the staffing crisis. When prisons lack sufficient staff, incarcerated people face heightened risk of violence, medical emergencies go unattended, and facilities become less safe for everyone.

4. Security Spending Vastly Outpaces Rehabilitation Investment

The state’s spending priorities are revealing:

The state invested $13,387,475 in contraband detection technology in a single year — nearly 90 times the $150,000 allocated for the only new rehabilitation programming pilot.

5. Capacity Expansion Signals a Policy Choice

Rather than reducing the incarcerated population through sentencing reform or expanded diversion, the state is building capacity:

• 263 new private prison beds at Coffee and Wheeler Correctional Institutions ($4,227,620)
• Five modular correctional units receiving $880,104 in FY 2026 and $1,760,207 in FY 2027
• Increased jail subsidy payments of $6,242,030 to house state prisoners in county jails
• Additional beds at Jenkins and Riverbend Correctional Institutions ($1,054,637 in both years)
• Lee Arrendale State Prison operations expansion ($1,542,179 annually) at the state’s only women’s prison

6. One-Time Salary Supplements Mask Structural Workforce Problems

The budget includes $2,000 one-time salary supplements to full-time state employees, totaling $12,050,341 in State Prisons alone. These one-time payments do not address base pay inadequacy. They are non-recurring — meaning the underlying recruitment and retention crisis persists.

Key Takeaway: The state spent $13.4 million on contraband detection technology in FY 2026 while allocating just $150,000 for a single new rehabilitation program — a 90-to-1 ratio that reveals where Georgia’s correctional priorities actually lie.

Comparable States

Data not available in source document. The Governor’s budget report does not include interstate comparisons for per-capita correctional spending, healthcare cost benchmarks, staffing ratios, or rehabilitation investment levels. GPS recommends the General Assembly request such comparisons from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute or the Council of State Governments Justice Center to contextualize these expenditures.

Policy Recommendations

1. Require a Cost-Per-Person Analysis Before Approving Capacity Expansion

Before authorizing 263 new private prison beds or additional modular units, the General Assembly should require GDC to produce a per-person cost analysis comparing the expense of incarceration against evidence-based diversion, sentencing reform, and community supervision alternatives. Every new bed commits the state to decades of operational, healthcare, and staffing costs.

2. Mandate Independent Healthcare Adequacy Reporting

Healthcare spending is increasing by $39,777,721 in FY 2026 and $54,769,710 in FY 2027, yet the budget provides no outcome data. The legislature should require independent, publicly reported assessments of healthcare adequacy — including wait times for medical and mental health appointments, staffing ratios relative to national standards, and mortality and morbidity data — as a condition of future appropriations.

3. Establish Rehabilitation-to-Security Spending Benchmarks

The current budget reveals a vast imbalance between security investment and rehabilitation investment. Legislators should establish a minimum percentage of correctional spending dedicated to education, vocational training, substance abuse treatment, and reentry programming, with annual reporting on compliance.

4. Require Transparency on Mandatory Prison Labor

The budget acknowledges that the state requires incarcerated people to work in farm operations, food preparation, construction, and manufacturing. The General Assembly should require GDC to report the economic value generated by this labor, the compensation (if any) provided to workers, and the impact on post-release employment outcomes.

5. Conduct a Staffing Crisis Root-Cause Analysis

The escalation from $4,982,902 to $26,824,134 for correctional officer positions in a single year indicates a crisis. Before approving these funds, the legislature should commission an independent analysis of working conditions, turnover rates, base compensation adequacy, and the direct impact of understaffing on the safety of both incarcerated people and staff.

6. Audit Private Prison Per-Bed Costs Against State-Operated Facilities

With private prison spending reaching $177,767,784 in FY 2027, the legislature should require a comparative cost analysis between private and state-operated facilities — accounting for healthcare obligations, programming quality, safety outcomes, and recidivism rates — before authorizing further expansion.

7. Expand and Fund the Peer-Led Programming Pilot

The $150,000 pilot at Autry State Prison represents a promising evidence-based model. If outcomes are positive, the legislature should scale this approach across the system rather than treating it as a token investment alongside billions in security spending.

Key Takeaway: The legislature should require cost-per-person analyses, independent healthcare adequacy reporting, and rehabilitation spending benchmarks before approving further capacity expansion that locks in decades of escalating costs.

Read the Source Document

Read the full Governor’s Budget Report — Department of Corrections, Amended FY 2026 and FY 2027 (PDF)

Other Versions

• Public Version — A plain-language summary for Georgia residents and families of incarcerated people
• Media Version — Key findings formatted for journalists with quotable data points