Calif. prison overhaul would save $1.5B a year

California's prison costs rose from 3 percent of general fund spending in 1980 to 11 percent in 2009. If the master plan released Monday is implemented, that would fall to 7.5 percent.

County officials have expressed concern over the realignment plan because the state has not guaranteed them the money to pay for it. Gov. Jerry Brown wants to place that guarantee in the state Constitution as part of a tax-hike initiative he is proposing for the November ballot.

The master plan released Monday also calls for closing the California Rehabilitation Center, a 3,900-inmate medium security prison in the Riverside County community of Norco, a building that opened in 1928 as a luxury hotel and served as a Naval hospital before the state took it over.

Closing the prison would save about $160 million a year in operating costs.