Prison closing discussion surfaces

Coffee, however, said there is no plan to shut down any prisons this year. He described it as a data-collecting process and said the DOC selected the prisons to be studied.

"The priority, from our standpoint, was always to try and save money without any preconceived notion from where," said the Senate leader, longtime proponent of utilizing more private prison beds to deal with inmate overcrowding.

The DOC studied the cost of closing the Oklahoma State Reformatory at Granite and prisons at Stringtown and Helena.

Its analysis concluded the cost to the state would be more than $23 million, counting recent capital improvements.

The report from DOC Director Justin Jones comes as an outside engineering firm is nearing completion of a $500,000 architectural study of the prison system, assessing the viability of all state prison facilities.

Earlier Tuesday, a Senate spokesman disputed published reports connecting the Senate leadership to possible prison closings.

Sen. Tom Ivester, D-Elk City, was criticized in a news release on Monday by Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, after Ivester expressed concern about reports of a plan to possibly close Granite, which is in his district.

Ivester said closing Granite would be an economic blow to his constituents. "It's a $10 million payroll and a couple hundred jobs — for rural Oklahoma that would be devastating," he said.

Sykes' new release said "there have been no discussions, in public or private, targeting any facilities for closure." Sykes is chairman of the Public Safety and Judiciary Committee, which handles prison funding.

Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, said Republicans have not been forthcoming on the issue.

"It seems like they have been caught at being accidentally misleading or purposely misleading and now they are trying to parse their words and back out of it," Rice said.

Democrats with prisons in their district requested information on the architectural study in a March 17 letter to Coffee. They said they have not heard back from Coffee.

The Senate leader said he has so far only received preliminary information.

Coffee said it would be "virtually impossible" to close a prison facility this year "even if there was a plan," which he said did not exist.

The DOC study placed the cost of closing Granite at $9.6 million, counting $1.5 million in increased spending for private prison beds; $2.5 million in severance pay to DOC workers, $1.4 million in annual "mothball" expenses and $3 million in lost income from agricultural operations.

The funding loss was put at $9.5 million for the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena and at $4.7 million at the Mack Alford Correctional Center at Stringtown.

According to the study, the economic loss to the area near Granite would be $12.2 million in payroll, $72,000 in canteen sales taxes, plus $120,000 in revenue to the Quartz Mountain Regional Water Authority.

The payroll loss was set at $10.9 million at Stringtown. The study said towns in the area were lose $704,089 in work from inmate public work crews. Other losses were $627,200 in utility revenue, $42,000 in canteen sales taxes and $12,000 in water supplied each year to the Department of Wildlife.

The loss at Helena was set at $10.7 million in payroll; $146,390 in sewage and water revenue and $59,960 in canteen sales taxes.