Alaska News

Troubled Goose Creek prison won't get startup funds yet

The huge Goose Creek prison in the Mat-Su won't open on time and a security company will have to be hired to keep people out of the empty prison, corrections officials said Thursday.

The new state operating budget about to be passed by the Legislature doesn't have enough money to enact a start-up plan that would open the facility next spring with a batch of 30 prisoners, said Shalon Harrington, the legislative liaison for the Alaska Department of Corrections.

She said the shortfall also throws into question the date that the prison might be fully operational.

"Right now we just have to take a few steps back and re-evaluate the entire situation," she said.

The $240 million Goose Creek prison is being built at Point MacKenzie across Knik Arm from Anchorage. The project has been under heavy pressure after the Senate Finance Committee in March heard the expected costs of operating it.

A top senator even talked about just mothballing it and dropping the plan to bring back 1,000 Alaska inmates who are being housed in a Colorado private prison.

The corrections department asked the Legislature for $3.6 million to ramp up operations. The Senate voted to give no money, saying there are too many questions. The House wanted to provide the entire amount sought by corrections officials.

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House and Senate negotiators compromised in a conference committee this week and put $2.4 million in the operating budget, which is expected to pass today.

"The $2.4 million is not going to be enough to move forward with the plan," Harrington said. "The request we had submitted for $3.6 million was a very conservative request, a minimal request in order to begin the ramp up for Goose Creek."

She said the $2.4 million will go for bond debt and utility costs, and what's left over will pay for the state to hire a security company to guard the prison. There's not enough money to bring in the prisoners to test the systems, she said.

Anchorage Democratic Sen. Johnny Ellis wants an audit of the prison project. He said there's concern about "the extraordinary costs associated with the location for Goose Creek and the utilities." Ellis said the prison should have been located closer to the Wasilla-Palmer region instead of the more remote Point MacKenzie area.

"My personal mantra is 'no more Goose Creeks. No more surprises, no more cost overruns,' " he said.

But Ellis said there is no escaping the fact the prison is nearly built. He said he doesn't think it's likely to be left empty with Alaska prisoners still in Colorado.

Ellis said that if the corrections department can justify receiving more money, the Legislature could consider such a request in the supplemental budget next spring. Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman has been particularly outspoken against the prison, saying it might be better to mothball the facility indefinitely.

Stedman, who has a lot of say over the budget as co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, didn't return a phone message asking about the prison on Thursday.

The corrections department doesn't expect to seek the money in next year's supplemental budget, which is supposed to cover unanticipated costs. But Harrington said the department could request the Legislature include the money as part of the budget for the next fiscal year, which will begin in July 2012.

"Then it would only be pushing back the ramp-up by three months," she said.

Prison construction is about 80 percent complete. It would be by far Alaska's biggest prison at 1,500 beds. The state expects to spend about $50 million a year to run it, along with $17.8 million in annual lease payments to the Mat-Su Borough for building it. That compares to about $20 million a year the state spends to keep inmates in Colorado.

Ellis, who is part of the Senate leadership, said the state spends too much on prisons.

He said "no more Goose Creeks" means more efforts should go to reduce the chances that offenders will be rearrested. That includes diverting non-violent addicts and alcoholics from costly prisons to rehabilitation, Ellis said.

Reach Sean Cockerham at scockerham@adn.com or 257-4344.

By SEAN COCKERHAM

scockerham@adn.com

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He also covered Alaska issues for McClatchy Newspapers based in Washington, D.C.

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