'Our job certainly is not done': Bond sale for prison construction comes in $200M short

Brian Lyman, Montgomery Advertiser
·4 min read

Alabama’s prison construction program is about $200 million short after a bond sale this week brought in less than the Ivey administration hoped.

A $725 million bond offering — key to the construction of two new men’s prisons but criticized by activists and inmates — ended up raising about $509 million on Tuesday. State Finance Director Bill Poole on Thursday blamed a lack of interest in longer-term bonds.

“The market was difficult in the longer-term maturities,” Poole said after the Alabama Corrections Finance Authority approved the sale of the bonds on Thursday. “We had over a billion dollars of orders in the short-term maturities, which tells us that the projects are acceptable to the market. Simply, there wasn’t interest in long-term maturities in the market.”

But Poole said the $1.3 billion plan would move forward, and that officials would look for “other options” to make up the difference.

A corrections officer walks through the faith dormitory at Kilby Corrections Facility in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015.
A corrections officer walks through the faith dormitory at Kilby Corrections Facility in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015.

“We will certainly work with the Legislature as we have heretofore to determine those,” he said. “There may be the availability of additional state appropriations. The state can choose to go back to the bond market when conditions are more favorable. We have time. That does not need to be a quick decision or a quick action by the state.”

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The state plans to build two 4,000-bed men’s prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties. The Elmore facility will also have space for medical facilities.

Alabama’s correctional facilities have faced violence and overcrowding for years. In December 2020, following two reports detailing graphic inmate-on-inmate and officer-on-inmate violence, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state, saying the prisons violated inmates’ Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Gov. Kay Ivey and former Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn pushed for new prisons for years, arguing current facilities were out of date, unsafe and lacking in space for rehabilitation and educational programs to prevent recidivism. The Legislature approved a financing plan for the new prisons last fall.

Ivey in a statement on Thursday called the bond sale “a significant and positive step forward in our prison construction process.”

“Our job certainly is not done, however, and we will continue to take steps in the coming months and years to ultimately improve Alabama’s criminal justice system,” the statement said.

But critics say new buildings will not do anything to address a critical lack of staffing or the culture of violence within the state’s correctional facilities. A group of investment funds and activists on Monday urged investors to stay out of the bond offering, citing the ongoing violence within the system. In April 2021, similar calls led two underwriters to withdraw from an earlier Alabama prison construction project.

File photo shows inmates at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka. The facility is 78 years old and was the subject of a federal investigation into harassment and abuse of female inmates that led to a 2015 consent decree.
File photo shows inmates at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka. The facility is 78 years old and was the subject of a federal investigation into harassment and abuse of female inmates that led to a 2015 consent decree.

“I think the investment community has heard about our work and has acknowledged its impact,” said Eric Glass, an adviser to Justice Capital, an investment fund that joined the call for a boycott. “For those institutions and individuals who’ve made proclamations about social justice and racial justice, this is an investment that should not be made.”

Troy Connell, an inmate at St. Clair Correctional Facility, has sued to block the construction of the prisons, saying court orders require the state to address the chronic understaffing in existing prisons before building new ones.

Poole said Thursday he did not think the opposition to the sale was a “significant factor," and said the state was complying with court orders.

“Financing these debt payments is not in any way in conflict with those obligations,” he said. “The state will meet those obligations. These are separate issues and they should not be in conflict and they will not be in conflict.”

Previous coverage: State committee authorizes bond sale for new men's prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties

At Bibb Correctional Facility: Inmate dies after being stabbed

Poole said he expected the state to pay $45 million to $48 million a year to serve the debt on the bonds. The plan also calls for spending $400 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and $135 million in General Fund money. Poole said Thursday he did not anticipate the state spending any more ARPA money on these projects.

Poole said the state was “very comfortable with the position to move forward as we planned” and that they still expected to open the prisons in 2026. Dana Sweeney, a statewide organizer for Alabama Appleseed who attended the meeting, said he did not find that credible.

“We’re talking about $200 million short,” he said. “It’s not an amount of money they’re going to find between the couch cushions. I seriously doubt the Legislature is going to be happy to be asked to cough up $200 million more than they were asked to.”

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama prison construction plan $200 million short after bond sale