By Brian Lyman
Montgomery Advertiser
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama House committee Thursday approved an $800 million prison construction project after a lengthy debate that included a brief discussion of privatization and the addition of a car title fee increase.
The committee approved the proposal, the centerpiece of Gov. Robert Bentley’s legislative agenda, on a 7-4 vote. House Ways and Means General Fund committee chairman Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, said a House floor vote could come next week.
“With the education budget now getting pretty close to complete, this is going to be the major issue for the rest of the session,” Clouse said after the vote.
The Senate approved the bill earlier this month. Clouse said he had “no idea” what kind of support it would get in the House.
Under the bill, the state would issue an $800 million bond to build four new prisons – three men’s prisons with 4,000 beds each and a women’s prison with 1,200 beds. Most existing prisons would close, though a handful would remain open.
Bentley and Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner Jeff Dunn say the new facilities would save money by eliminating duplicated services and reducing the need for overtime. Supporters also say the facilities will be safer for correctional officers and inmates, and provide more space for programming, including training and rehabilitative services.
Combined with prison reform passed last year, Dunn said the proposal could bring the overcrowding in the prisons – which stood at 183 percent in January – to 125 percent. But House Judiciary Committee chairman Mike Jones, R-Andalusia, said that was not the purpose of the project.
“This is not prison reform,” Jones told the committee. “This is about the facilities and the condition they’re in.”
Alabama has not opened a new prison since 1997, and some facilities are showing their age. The Legislature in recent years has made specific appropriations in the General Fund budget to replace the locks in St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, a prison with a history of violence.
But the cost of the project gave some legislators pause. Corrections officials say the efficiencies will save enough money to service the bonds, but also acknowledge that the savings would come from consolidations at the three men’s prisons, not the women’s facility.
To pay for a new prison at Tutwiler, the committee approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, which would raise the current car title fee from $15 to $28, and raise about $18.3 million each year. Most of the money would go to the construction of a women’s prison. Some would go to the Department of Revenue for processing. After completion of the women’s prison, the money would go to pay for construction costs on the men’s prisons.
The title fee has not been increased since 1986, and some states charge much higher rates; Florida charges $90 for titles, Clouse said. The House approved the title fee increase last year but did not come to a vote in the Senate. Ingram, a car dealer, said he did not support raising taxes but said the industry supported the bill, in part to allow speedier processing of car titles by the department.
“This is a bill that the industry supports over a sales tax on automobiles,” he said. “This is a bill that is not going to hurt the people in the state of Alabama.”
But some committee members questioned the need for the proposal. Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Birmingham, said the bill would create “another additional income stream so the government can grow and live beyond its means.”
The Senate has been hostile to tax increases, but Clouse said he believed Ingram’s bill “complemented” the prison proposal.
“It gives a lot of legislators that really want to delve into this the sense that this is a revenue stream that we can depend on over the next thirty years and help solve this problem,” he said.
Experts have also questioned the size of the facilities proposed, saying that without solid commitments from the Legislature to fund programs the facilities may not work as intended.
Some legislators also questioned language included in a substitute that would allow bidders to also bid on operations. Rep. Napoleon Bracy, D-Prichard, asked Jones and Dunn if the language would allow privatization.
“This is telling people not only can you send us a proposal to build prisons, but you can send us a proposal to build and operate our prisons,” he said.
Jones and Dunn both said the department had no intention to pursue privatization and did not oppose an amendment from Rep. John Knight, D-Montgomery, that struck the language out.
The full bill moves onto the House. Dunn said after the vote that if the prison construction proposal gets final approval, a committee develop a request for proposals would be immediately formed.
Groundbreaking on the facilities would take place in 18 months, at the earliest.
Copyright 2016 the Montgomery Advertiser