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Alabama needs more money to build its mega-prisons – a lot more.
The Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee on Wednesday gave a favorable report to legislation that would allow the state to borrow up to $500 million more in order to complete its construction of two prisons, potentially driving the total borrowed amount up $1.28 billion for the construction of the two facilities in Elmore and Escambia counties.
Lawmakers originally approved a plan in 2021 to pay $1.3 billion for two new, 4,000-bed prisons and renovations at three existing facilities. The costs have since skyrocketed, leaving the state on the hook for more than $1 billion for just the Elmore prison. Lawmakers have scrambled to scrap together additional funds, including using $400 million in COVID relief funds provided by the federal government and more than $150 million in general fund money – much of it also made possible by federal relief money in the wake of the pandemic.
Sen. Greg Albritton, who sponsored the legislation passed Wednesday and who has been one of the leaders on the prison project, said during the committee hearing that he was hopeful that the state wouldn’t need to borrow the full $500 million requested. Instead, he said the request made it likely that the committee wouldn’t be asked in the future to allocate more money to the project.
“When we originally brought this project, we projected at $785 million and that’s what we put in the bill. Then reality – and COVID and inflation and other factors – set in, and the final and best cost for the Elmore facility alone is $1.086 billion,” Albritton said. “The Elmore facility is scheduled to be completed next year. So, we’re making great progress, but frankly, we don’t have the money to finish.”
Albritton said the state has only enough money currently to complete construction of the Elmore prison and roughly 60 percent of the Escambia facility. The state is required to build both facilities, he said.
Albritton fielded questions from other committee members about various problems and previous prison plans, one of which was proposed by former Gov. Robert Bentley and called for three prisons to be built for a total of $800 million. That plan, and others, also proposed paying off at least a portion of the debt incurred through cost savings that would be realized by shuttering other, outdated facilities.
Albritton squashed that talk quickly, saying this current plan is the reality and that there would be no cost savings. In fact, at one point, he seemed to indicate that the prisons being built would not have an 8,000-prisoner capacity, as they were originally planned. He also said that despite efforts by some lawmakers to alleviate overcrowding in Alabama’s prisons, the state’s prison population is now higher than in 2021.
“We originally planned to have 8,000 replacement beds – not addition, but replacement beds – in the two new facilities,” Albritton said, meaning that the two new prisons would be immediately filled to capacity with prisoners arriving from existing Alabama prisons that are slated to be shuttered or renovated.
“Since that time we’ve had portions in other facilities close and we’ve had a reduction in the number of beds. Also in that time, we’ve had an increase in the number of inmates.”
Adding to the problem is a lingering federal lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice over abhorrent conditions within Alabama’s prisons. The state has already agreed to hire at least 2,000 new correctional officers – a task they have made little progress with – and make various improvements.
State officials have essentially admitted that the new prison construction will not address many of the issues presented in the DOJ lawsuit, and that the state could be on the hook for millions more in order to address those problems.
