Critical Reasoning

This is a CR as well as an SC question LOL
In order to compensate for rising costs within the state prison system, one state legislator recommends increasing the amount of money allotted to state prisons by ten percent per prisoner. The legislator claims that this will increase the overall budget for the prison system by ten percent in the coming years.

On which of the following assumptions does the legislator's argument depend?

(A)

The rising costs within the state prison system are not the result of an increase in the number of prisoners in the system.
(B)

The total number of prisoners in the state prison system will not decrease in upcoming years.
(C)

The number of people who are sentenced to non-prison sentences, like community service, rather than prison sentences, will not increase.
(D)

The total number of prisons in use in the state will not decrease from its current level.
(E)

The average number of prisoners in each prison will not decrease in the coming years.

How do we interpret A ?

The rising costs within the state prison system are not the result of an increase in the number of prisoners in the system.

The number of prisoners has not increased so far or the number of prisoners are not increasing in general

I thought the present tense are is used to indicate that the action generally is true . The action was true yesterday ,is true today and will be true tomorrow too.
what does the

In order to compensate for rising costs within the state prison system

in the stimulus signify . the costs were rising till today or have been rising and will be rising tomorrow as well


Can we interpret A in another way
The costs continue to remain the same inspite of the increase in passengers .