New prison construction plan reviewed

Lawmakers reviewed a new version of a prison construction plan Thursday, one without the massive $221 million in bonds for Prison 8 in southern Nevada.

But Director Howard Skolnik said the governor's proposal still includes closing down Nevada State Prison, which legislators have said they oppose. They haven't, however, made a decision on that plan, which Skolnik said saves his operating budget $18 million a year.

"That's a decision that needs to be made," he said following the hearing before a joint subcommittee of Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means.

If lawmakers decide to keep NSP open, he said cuts will have to be made somewhere else or more money put into his budgets to balance them.

NSP employees have objected to shutting the old prison down saying that would put about 175 people out of work, further damaging Carson City's economy and lawmakers have questioned the logic of closing a prison when the state needs more beds to hold the growing inmate population.

The plan does, however, include $9.6 million in money to plan and design a major expansion of Warm Springs prison, located next door to the old Nevada State Prison.

And Skolnik has said in the past that expansion would restore most of the jobs lost by closing NSP.

The plan includes adding three modern housing units at Warm Springs and core facilities to house up to 1,500 inmates there. It would be built by 2013, in the meantime providing numerous construction jobs in the Capital.

While the huge new prison in southern Nevada was taken off the Capital Improvement Projects list, the proposed budget does provide for construction of a badly needed southern Regional Medical Facility. At present, the prison has its only medical center in Carson City even though most of the inmates are in the south.

Added to that project is a new execution chamber, which Skolnik said is needed because it's unlikely the historic gas chamber in Carson City now used would meet the latest court requirements.

Together, those two projects would cost $62.2 million.

Skolnik said the plan laid out for the committee Thursday "will meet almost any scenario we've been asked to prepare."

The committee took no action on the proposals.