HELENA — The Schweitzer administration and Democrats objected Tuesday to a Republican budget bill that projects that far fewer prisoners will be incarcerated than the Corrections Department anticipates.

House Bill 806, by Rep. Bill Beck, R-Whitefish, would appropriate $42.4 million less than the increase the governor recommended.

About three-fourths of the difference can be attributed to the disagreement over the projected population growth rate in state prisons. The administration and department had sought money for a 7.5 percent annual increase in prisoner population for the rest of fiscal 2007 and 2008 and 2009, while the Republican plan lowers the rate to 4 percent annually.

“I can’t understand why people would be proud of cutting $40 million out of a budget for public safety,” Schweitzer’s budget director, David Ewer, said, adding: “Do you think we would ask for more money for corrections if we didn’t need it?”

The Schweitzer administration recommended that the Corrections Department receive about $350 million from all sources of funding over the next two years, while the Republican budget calls for $307 million over the next two years, which still represents an increase over the current budget.

Ewer criticized the GOP plan for “artificially” capping the prisoner growth rate at 4 percent.

Ewer said the Corrections Department engaged in honest budgeting in hopes of avoiding a supplemental appropriation such as the $26 million it is seeking this year to tide it over for 2006 and 2007.

“If you artificially squeeze down the Department of Corrections, what happens?” Ewer asked. “Are we looking at another supplemental?”

Ewer said department officials project a 7 percent annual increase in prisoner populations, but added that the administration “will do everything within our power to bring that down with innovative programs.”

State Corrections Director Mike Ferriter said the reduced budget increases in HB806 will “put public safety at risk, limit our efforts to hold offenders accountable, hamper our efforts to rehabilitate offenders (and) increase recidivism.”

He said the agency needs the budget necessary “to manage the risk and needs of more than 12,000 adult felony offenders and nearly 500 juvenile offenders.”

Sen. Steve Gallus, D-Butte, called the revised budget for the Corrections Department “wholly inadequate” and urged legislators to change it.

“It has been the bastard child of the Legislature as long as I’ve been here,” Gallus said. “It has never been funded properly.”

Rep. Dave Kasten, R-Brockway, said he was confident the Legislature, as it has in the past, will fund the Corrections Department adequately after amendments to the bill.

“The numbers will change dramatically before we finish,” he said.