By Mark Sommerhauser
St. Cloud Times
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Minnesota legislators stood elbow-to-elbow inside the intake unit at Minnesota Correctional Facility-St. Cloud Wednesday morning, orange-clad inmates peering out at them from holding cells.
A Minnesota House panel visited the prison during a statewide tour of sites for potential construction projects that could be funded by the Legislature in 2014. A corresponding Senate panel visited some of the same sites last week.
The Department of Corrections wants $32.5 million to replace the intake and health services facility and a loading dock at the St. Cloud prison. Corrections officials say the obsolete designs of the areas pose safety hazards to inmates and staff.
The project is among the costliest requests submitted to lawmakers for consideration as part of a 2014 state bonding bill to fund construction projects. Minnesota lawmakers typically pass large bonding bills in even-numbered years.
Wednesday’s visit appeared to sway Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, who chairs the House Capital Investment Committee that took the tour. Hausman said she will include at least a portion of the funding sought for the prison work in her 2014 bonding proposal.
“There is just a crying need there,” Hausman said. “I had claustrophobia just feeling how limited the space is.”
The House panel also visited River’s Edge Convention Center, for which St. Cloud wants $11.56 million for an expansion that would include a new parking ramp. Hausman, a longtime supporter of the River’s Edge project, said she will include funding for it in her 2014 bonding proposal.
Safety concerns at prison
Sen. LeRoy Stumpf, who leads a corresponding Capital Investment panel in the Senate, voiced similar support for the St. Cloud prison project after he and his panel toured it last week. Stumpf, DFL-Plummer, said he’s likely to include funding for the project in his bonding plan.
The St. Cloud prison project is the Corrections Department’s third-highest priority for bonding money next year, behind requests for money for systemwide maintenance and for a perimeter fence at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee.
St. Cloud prison is the Corrections Department’s statewide intake facility for adult male prisoners. Warden Collin Gau said 700-800 inmates come through the intake unit each month.
Gau said fights and other incidents in the unit are not uncommon. Its cramped layout increases the odds of such conflicts and makes it more difficult to prevent them, he said.
Safety and space concerns also spur the request to build a new health services unit. Blood-drawing and other procedures often are done on inmates in tight confines with other inmates, raising security concerns, Gau said. The prison staffer who controls access to the unit also is stationed at a post that leaves them exposed.
“It’s just not a good, safe, secure environment,” Gau said.
Size of bill in question
Hausman said that while her bonding proposal will include funding for St. Cloud prison, it might only include enough to do a first phase.
Corrections officials said the project could be built in two phases, though it would cost an additional $2 million to do so.
Lawmakers visited the sites of two other proposed local projects Wednesday: St. Cloud State University, for which Minnesota State Colleges and Universities wants $865,000 to design a renovation of Eastman Hall into a student health services facility, and the Wobegon Trail, for which Stearns County wants $1.61 million to extend the trail from St. Joseph to Waite Park.
While conveying support for St. Cloud’s two biggest bonding projects, Hausman said much will hinge on the size of a bonding bill in 2014.
Hausman said there are enough worthy construction projects throughout the state to support a bill of nearly $1 billion. Stumpf said last week he envisions a bill of between $800 million and $850 million.
“It all depends on my being able to do a big bill,” Hausman said.
Many Republican lawmakers are likely to resist a large bonding bill, a crucial point in the DFL-controlled Legislature because bonding bills require a supermajority vote. Many Republicans also have opposed state funding for what they consider local projects such as the River’s Edge center, as well as similar facilities in Rochester and Mankato.