ST. THOMAS - Corrections Director Julius Wilson on Monday outlined his plans to improve the territory's prison system when it becomes its own governmental department in October to the Senate Appropriations and Budget Committee.

Wilson appeared before the committee to defend the Corrections Bureau's $29,245,834 budget request for Fiscal Year 2010. When the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, Corrections will for the first time be its own agency. Historically, the Corrections Bureau has been a subdivision of the V.I. Justice Department.

For years, the Corrections Bureau has been plagued with inadequate funding and substandard conditions for inmates. The prisons on both St. Thomas and St. Croix are under federal consent decrees requiring the government to make drastic improvements to both facilities. Each consent decree has lasted for years, with slow progress to improve conditions for inmates.

Wilson said that improving conditions at the prisons and doing the work needed for the consent decrees to be lifted are his priorities. Renovations have been made to tighten security and improve some of the living quarters at Golden Grove Adult Correction Facility on St. Croix. New food service and medical equipment have been purchased for the prison. A total of 39 critically needed staff members - including medical professionals and 22 new corrections officers - have been hired so far in the current fiscal year.

In FY 2010, Wilson intends to train and hire 20 more new corrections officers and contract with a dentist to serve the inmate population. Units will continue to be retrofitted, and Wilson plans to pull together additional legal materials so that the prisons can have complete legal libraries.

"Everything that we've got that we need to work on, we're working on it," Wilson said.

Attorney General Vincent Frazer, who also appeared before the Senate committee on Monday with his budget request, spoke up about the government's progress on the consent decrees. Frazer has been dealing with the prisons firsthand since he took the helm of the Justice Department in 2007.

"We continue working on it every day and fixing things," Frazer said. "Many times, the advocates on the other side would like us to snap our fingers and change things."

Because of the recent improvements to Golden Grove, Wilson told senators that he plans to bring several of the territory's inmates serving time at stateside maximum-security prisons back to the Virgin Islands later this year. The cost will be a little lower to house them on St. Croix, Wilson said, but it will not represent a sweeping cost savings.

Wilson said Golden Grove can house about 500 inmates. With the return of the stateside inmates, coupled with an increasing number of arrests that is expanding the prison population, Wilson said that the St. Croix prison soon will be reaching its capacity. The Public Works Department is doing an assessment of the physical condition of Golden Grove, Wilson said. The department will present him with options to improve or expand the prison.

"We have to build our way out of this, I believe," Wilson said.

Committee Chairman Carlton Dowe said that Wilson needs to clearly communicate the territory's prison needs to the Senate. Monday was the first he had heard of a potential space shortage in the facility. Wilson said he would present the report to the Senate as soon as he receives it.

"We need a plan," Dowe said. "We just floated some bonds. I didn't hear anyone say, 'Meh son, we need $1 million to design an addition to the prison.' "

The proposed $29,245,834 for the Bureau of Corrections will be enough for the mandates to be met and conditions improved, Wilson said. The request is nearly $4.2 million more than the funding the Justice Department received to run Corrections in the current fiscal year. Close to $17.6 million is for salaries and fringe benefits. The rest of the funding is for off-island prisoner housing, services for prisoners, maintenance to the facilities, and utility bills.

With Corrections as its own department, the Justice Department is seeing a much lower budgetary recommendation for FY 2010 - $15,351,243 from the General Fund, down from almost $39.6 million in the current fiscal year. Frazer said that this is not an ideal amount for the department, but he thinks he can make it work.

"I believe with efficient management of the budget and properly leveraging the federal funds that are available to us, we can accomplish the mission," Frazer said.

The vast majority of the funding - more than $13 million - goes to salaries and fringe benefits for the department's 204 locally funded employees. This includes filling 45 vacancies - including hiring four attorneys to deal solely with matters before the magistrate division of V.I. Superior Court and reinvigorating the Gaming Enforcement Division, which is the investigatory and enforcement arm of the Casino Control Commission. Gaming Enforcement is down to two employees because of the government-wide hiring freeze, Frazer said.