Senate advances $116M prison bond issue

Lawmakers this week are considering a $116.5 million bond issue for repairs at Oklahoma prisons.

If approved, the money would be spent on the state’s aging correctional facilities, including repairs and installation of security devices.

The Department of Corrections originally requested more than $141 million for refurbishments, but some of the line-item projects in that request have already been funded, said state Sen. Roger Thompson, R-Okemah. That includes nearly $5 million for a new offender management system to replace the department’s paper filing system.

Senate Bill 1590 was approved by the Joint Committees on Appropriations and Budget this week and passed on the Senate floor Tuesday. It can now be approved by the House.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve done any type of upkeep inside of our institutions,” Thompson said.

Oklahoma’s prisons

It’s been a long time since we’ve done any type of upkeep inside of our institutions.”

Sen. Roger Thompson R-Okemah

face multiple issues ranging from aging sites to inmate populations growing beyond what the department is equipped to handle. The state’s maximum security prison in McAlester is more than a century old. Last year, corrections officials said they needed new sewer, water and gas lines, new air conditioning, road repairs and lighting improvements.

“So at McAlester, because of that, we’re at $38,000 a year per inmate,” Thompson said, adding that amount is almost double what it costs to care for inmates in other facilities.

“A lot of that is simply upkeep, maintenance,” he said.

The bond issue, if approved by the House and governor, also would provide funds to help the department with security issues around the state.

“It will modernize some of the locks, even put locks on some of the doors,” he said.

Corrections officials declined to comment until after the session ends.

The bond issue isn’t everything the Department of Corrections

wants. In the department’s budget request, Director Joe Allbaugh asked for $800 million to build two new prisons. In March, the Senate budget chair told Allbaugh to come back with specifics, and Thompson repeated that request in an interview Tuesday.

There is no $800 million bond issue being considered this session because “there is nothing shelfready,” Thompson said.

“I was not willing to go forward on building new prisons in the state of Oklahoma without a plan. Exactly where will they go? How will they be built? I want to see architectural drawings,” he said. “If we’re going to indebt the people of Oklahoma for $400 million per prison, we need to have a firm plan.”

He said Oklahoma’s prisons are at about 114 percent capacity, yet other issues — particularly salaries offered to correctional officers — have left beds empty in the Department of Correction’s Sayre prison because there aren’t enough officers to put on duty.

“We can’t hire anybody at $13.84 cents an hour to be a correctional officer there in Sayre. We’re trying to address that issue there as well,” Thompson said.