By Julie Carr Smyth
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — An 11-year-old lock-up along on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio has become the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company.
Lake Erie Correctional Institution in northeastern Ohio’s Ashtabula County is the only one of five state prisons up for sale that will be sold, state officials said Thursday. It’s going to Corrections Corporation of America for $72.7 million.
The four other prisons for sale didn’t generate advantageous offers.
Utah-based Management Training Corporation won rights to operate two facilities in Marion, Ohio, as a single prison camp; and a privately run state prison in Lorain County will be returned to state control.
Ohio will save an estimated $13 million annually with the moves, part of Republican Gov. John Kasich’s budget-cutting efforts.