Dr. Sasan Salmi at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran on Wednesday, February 11, 2009. State leaders have called the California Prison Health Care Receiver's office an imperious bureaucracy. They hammer the Receiver's high costs and plans to build 'gold-plated' health facilities despite the budget crisis. The Receiver calls the complaints political grandstanding. Politics aside, state audits and initial reporting suggest serious problems within the Receiver's bureaucracy: Despite concerns voiced more than a year ago, the Receiver may still be grossly overpaying his core staff. Several key employees also receive Dept. of Corrections pensions or hold down second jobs. Salaries for prison doctors and nurses have been justifiably raised; perhaps too sharply. Some earn more than double the pay of comparable clinicians in private practice or other health agencies. The Receiver illegally awarded many lucrative, noncompetitive contracts. It's faulty and costly computer billing system, built from scratch by a contractor, has jeopardized care by dramatically delaying vendor payments. Meanwhile, some data evaluations suggest that the quality of care has not changed much.