Well, this would make things more interesting:

“Right now, the organization is contemplating a strike vote among our members, but we have not moved forward with that at this point, but that was a decision of our convention last week,” said California Correctional Police Officers Association spokesman Lance Corcoran.

Corcoran said the decision-making council of the CCPOA would decide whether to send a strike ballot for union members to consider within the next 10 days.

“The governor has excluded certain elements of state government from furloughs calling them essential for public safety, but he did not exclude corrections,” Corcoran said. “If we are not essential public safety, then it is our belief that we may be able to strike.”(Inland Valley Daily Bulletin 7/23/09)

Obviously, the CCPOA has its own interests at heart here. They’ve been fighting prison and sentencing reform for, well, forever.  But, they have a bit more power than other public employee unions. They strike, and you have a slew of prison riots.  So, it’s not just the cash that they’ve been spreading around Sacramento that has made them powerful.

The cuts will clearly impact CCPOA, but with the recent prison intrigue and pulling whatever plan was on the table to reform our prison system, who knows what the specifics will be. For now, it looks like there will be $1.2 billion in unallocated cuts. My guess is that they’ll try to get into the lucrative business of dog poop cleaning.

Earlier this week, Steve Maviglio called the CCPOA a “loser” of the budget deal, and perhaps they agree.  Looks like they’re going to try and force the issue. Either way, this throws a wrench into the carefully crafted “plan” that the Big 5 have come up with.