MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A prison reform plan that would allow some nonviolent felons to get out early and ease monitoring of sex offenders and others won approval early Friday morning by the Legislature's budget committee.

Gov. Jim Doyle proposed the changes as a way to reduce overcrowding and save money as the state faces a $6.6 billion projected budget shortfall.

Republicans characterized the changes as "pro-criminal" that gut the intent of a 1999 law designed to keep offenders in prison for the majority of their sentence.

"There are going to be more people who are going to be victims because of the actions you are proposing," said Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine. "This is not a good proposal for victims."

Democrats who control the committee defended them as smart reforms that overhaul the criminal justice system and better prepare inmates for life outside of prison by bolstering treatment, job training and education services in the community.

"We're behind the curve of other states, but we're definitely catching up," said committee co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison.

The plan includes ending real-time tracking for low-risk sex offenders, allowing judges to eliminate probation for people convicted of minor crimes and limiting how long someone can be on extended supervision.

Wisconsin's prisons house about 22,000 inmates and are 20 percent overcrowded. Without changes, the number of inmates is projected to grow 21 percent over the next 10 years. A consultant's report issued in April estimated that will add $2.5 billion over that time in operating and construction costs.

Under the plan, sex offenders would not be eligible for early release and neither would those convicted of the most serious felonies, such as homicide.

It's unclear how many inmates would be eligible. Under the original plan, which was revised early Friday, about 3,000 were estimated to qualify.

The reforms are among the first major changes to the state's truth-in-sentencing law passed in 1999 that abolished early release on parole and required offenders to serve their full prison term before they are placed on extended supervision. That was later changed to allow for all but the most violent offenders to seek release after serving either 75 percent or 85 percent of their prison sentence.

The changes adopted Friday would apply to anyone who committed crimes on or after Dec. 31, 1999, which is when truth-in-sentencing took effect.

Corrections officials would decide whether serious sex offenders need real-time GPS tracking after a year or whether checking their movements once a day would be appropriate. Current state law requires real-time monitoring for the worst sex offenders.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates that by mid-2010 there will be 325 sex offenders being tracked by GPS and 450 by mid-2011.

The reforms cleared the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee on a 12-4 vote taken at about 2:30 a.m. Friday. It was one of the last votes the committee took on the two-year budget.

The full Legislature, controlled by Democrats like the committee, must approve the early release changes before they become law.

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