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State continues to seek funding for second new prison

A timeline for the construction of a second massive men’s prison, pledged in 2021 legislation, is still unknown as state leaders continue to seek more funding.

“The State of Alabama is evaluating the best approach forward for the Escambia Men’s Facility project,” the Alabama Department of Corrections told Alabama Daily News in response to questions sent to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office about the project. 

“Full funding is not yet available so any construction timeline would be premature, but Gov. Ivey is committed to seeing this endeavor through.”

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range, chairman of the Senate General Fund committee, said the state doesn’t have an option but to move forward with the second 4,000-bed prison. 

Two prisons are what was promised in the prison construction package approved by lawmakers and Ivey in 2021. The U.S. Department of Justice has an ongoing lawsuit with the state over the violent conditions in the crowded existing prisons. And public pressure, including recent meetings in which the families of inmates recounted gruesome details about abuse in prisons, is mounting.

Between two General Fund spending bills approved this spring there was about $400 million in new money for prison construction. 

“The executive branch is tasked now with making this happen,” Albritton told ADN on Monday about funding the construction. “I’ve done everything I can do to make this happen.”

The prison projects are expected to be part of the discussion this morning when the House and Senate General Fund Budget committees continue their summer hearings with state agency leaders. The ADOC hearing is at 10 a.m. The Alabama Forestry Commission’s is at 11:30 a.m.

Lawmakers and Ivey in 2021 dedicated $1.2 billion to two prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties. The Elmore site is under construction and was originally expected to cost less than $700 million. That’s increased to more than $1 billion because of inflation and an increased scope to included education and mental health services, ADOC says. 

The Escambia prison is expected to cost less than Elmore because it won’t have specialized medical facilities.

While the legislation does specify two prisons will be built, it does not include a timeline or deadline. It does say that once both the new prisons were open, the current Elmore prison, which is on the same site as the new one, and Stanton and Kilby prisons would be closed within a year. 

Together, those three prisons held more than 3,800 inmates in December. The law also outlines other later closures.

The new Escambia County prison will be in Albritton’s district, which is also home to two of the state’s existing prisons. Portions of Holman Prison were closed in recent years because of structural issues. Fountain Prison is nearly 100 years old.

The state has not entered into contracts for the second prison. The legislation gave the state the option to bypass the traditional bid process and have a design-build contract, where a single entity performs both the design and construction under a single agreement. That’s what was selected for Elmore County. 

In the more standard design-bid-build, designers and contractors are hired separately.

Albritton said borrowing additional money is an option to complete the Escambia County site.

“We have the means to do it, we have the credit, so that’s going to have to be something that we pursue,” he said.

But Albritton said he’s also suggested that new prison costs may have to come out of ADOC’s operating budget.

“They were not happy with that, but I don’t see another option here,” he said.

Separate from targeted construction spending, ADOC will get $736.5 million from next year’s General Fund budget, an increase of about $40.4 million from this year.

John Hamm, the ADOC commissioner, previously told lawmakers about increased expenses associated with a growing and aging prison population.

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