Two dollars and forty-eight cents buys a Michigan felon three meals a day in any one of our state's 41 prisons.

"We've got more than 50,000 inmates," explains Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. "You're talking about $125,000 a day, close to $1 million a week in food costs."

But a state audit says the more than $83 million spent feeding felons and staffing prison kitchens could be chopped nearly by half if the state privatized its food services, along with cutting back on calories and making sure convicts don't steal extra meals.

"If there's a way we can keep quality up, look at all costs and still save money, we're certainly willing to do that," Marlan says.

But Marlan says the Department's food expenses are already lower than food stamps.

"We can't serve bread and water, but we wouldn't want to anyway," he says, citing safety issues; if prisoners are unhappy at food time, it could cause riots.

Governor Jennifer Granholm tells us she's aware of the burden.

"We bid out the contracts, make sure we get the cheapest option for the state of Michigan-- but you do have to feed them," she says.

But Governor Granholm says simply cutting out polish sausages and garbanzo-bean burgers with ranch dressing from prisoner menus would be missing the real issue.

"What you really have to do is reform the prison correction system so we have rational prison policy where we don't let out those who are dangerous but do let out those who can be safely integrated into the community," she explains as a way to save money.

But with the price of food on the rise, Marlan says there's a chance feeding felons could become more expensive too-- and until things change, Michigan taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill.