State officials peppered with questions on price tag for new men’s prison

The site selected for the new South Dakota State Penitentiary in Lincoln County. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Lawmakers expressed frustration Tuesday in Pierre over the uncertain price tag for construction and operations of a proposed men’s prison in Lincoln County.

Members of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee also had pointed questions for Department of Corrections officials on alternative sites for the project, which has sparked a lawsuit from nearby neighbors and represents the most expensive taxpayer-funded capital project in state history.

“I’m just flabbergasted that we’ve not yet wrapped our arms around this as a total package,” said Rep. John Mills, R-Brookings.

Lawmakers have already dedicated more than $569 million to the project across the past two legislative sessions, including $62 million in preparatory spending. The rest sits in an incarceration construction fund.

The guaranteed maximum price for construction is expected in early November, DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko and Finance Director Brittni Skipper testified on Tuesday. That fixed price wouldn’t change, Skipper said, even if inflation or other construction costs increase.

Some lawmakers, including Sen. Jim Bolin, R-Canton, struggled to understand how a company could make such a promise. 

“If you’re talking about an $800 million project, maybe more, if you make a mistake on that, you can bankrupt your whole company,” Bolin said.

Skipper told Bolin the DOC has a construction manager at-risk, JE Dunn and Henry Carlson Construction, who will build three years of projected inflation into the promised price.

“It’s in their contract to provide to us a guaranteed maximum price,” Skipper said, noting that the DOC has a similar arrangement for a new women’s prison under construction in Rapid City.

Rep. Chris Karr, R-Sioux Falls, was one of several lawmakers to push Wasko and Skipper about the potential ongoing costs associated with the prison once it’s complete. Karr and other committee members asked about prison population growth and staffing projections.

“If we’re going to make this huge investment, are we going to be able to house everybody?” Karr said.

Wasko said she doesn’t trust inmate population projections any further than five years out. 

She said too many things can change, including when lawmakers create new felony crimes or toughen penalties. They did that with 2023’s “truth in sentencing” bill, which now forces those convicted for violent offenses to serve most or all of their prison terms.

“Our rate of incarceration is not slowing down. It’s actually speeding up,” Wasko said. 

Even so, she said, the 1,500-bed proposal would offer the agency breathing room, as it’s designed to be a maximum-security facility capable of managing overflow from other areas of the system. The prison would take on most of the inmates now housed at the penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Rep. Tony Venhuizen, R-Sioux Falls, said he understands that projections can change, but also said it’s important for appropriators to have a better sense of what they’re committing to.

“This could be a pretty considerable ongoing cost, and I do think at some point during the next session, we’re going to need a ballpark of what that might be,” Venhuizen said. 

Skipper said the previous ballpark estimates anticipated 130 more employees and approximately $15 million in ongoing funding.

Sen. Red Dawn Foster, D-Pine Ridge, wanted to know if the DOC had consulted with the state’s Supreme Court, Unified Judicial System or Attorney General’s Office to drill down on what to expect in terms of offender population growth. 

Wasko said the DOC hadn’t reached out to those agencies to talk about projections.

Steve Haugaard, a Republican former lawmaker and one-time primary candidate for governor, seized upon that point during his testimony, which he offered via video feed later in the afternoon.

Haugaard argued that lawmakers were spending too much money on prisons without clear goals for managing corrections and criminal justice as a whole. Haugaard argued that “the building is going to control the overall policy,” and said policy guidance ought to come first.

Upon hearing that the DOC hadn’t consulted with the courts or attorney general, he said, “I just wonder what are we doing?” Haugaard said.

“We don’t have a corrections policy that’s firmly in place,” Haugaard said. “And from what I can see from those stats from the past 40-plus years, we didn’t respond to the ever-increasing spike in incarceration rates.”

Wasko said, as she has in the past, that South Dakota stands out from many other states for harsh penalties. But she also said that as a member of the executive branch, her responsibility is to manage an offender population, not to influence its size.

“There’s a judicial branch, the legislative branch, and I’m the executive branch, and there’s reasons for that,” Wasko said. “I would not be responsible for anything on the front end of incarceration.”

Wasko got backing on that point from Rep. Rep. Linda Duba, D-Sioux Falls, said the courts, prosecutors and lawmakers need to be proactive in criminal justice policy. She said the new facility is needed to make space for treatment and rehabilitation programs.

During another line of questioning, Karr asked about recent heavy rains and the possibility of flooding. He wanted to know if the proposed prison site is in a flood plain. 

Haugaard also keyed in on flooding potential, as did Kyah Broders, one of the Lincoln County residents suing the DOC over its site selection process.

The area did see several road closures during the heavy rains, she said Tuesday. 

“Adding sewage ponds and tons of concrete will only compound this issue in the future,” she said.

Skipper said the site is not in a flood plain. She showed the committee a photo of the land shortly after the historic June rainfall that wreaked havoc on communities in southeast South Dakota.

“You can see from those photos that there was minimal water damage to the site, without any soil being moved or anything being done,” Skipper said. 

In response to an email about the rainfall, DOC spokesman Michael Winder sent the photos shown to the lawmakers and wrote that the project’s civil engineer “will prepare the design for watershed from the property that would include any stormwater runoff.”

Bolin asked what might happen if Broders and her fellow prison site opponents succeed in forcing the state to apply for a county zoning permit and the county refuses to grant one.

“We do not have a valid or developed plan B if that ruling does not come through for us,” Wasko said.

Bolin, who is not returning to Pierre for the next legislative session, closed out the prison site update portion of Tuesday’s meeting by returning to the influence harsh penalties have on prison populations.

Bills meant to get tough on crime and “lock them up and throw away the key” have appeared in nearly all of his 16 years in Pierre, Bolin said.

For future lawmakers, he said, “If you really believe that, you’ve also got to be prepared to pay the bill.”