Alabama Senate committee delays vote on additional borrowing for Escambia prison

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
February 5, 2025

The head of the Alabama Senate’s General Fund committee Wednesday delayed a vote on a bill to allow the state to borrow an additional $500 million to build a prison in Escambia County.

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, told members of the Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee he wanted to hold off a committee vote on SB 60 but he declined to state a reason.

“What we are doing here is using a means so that we stop looking in the sofa cushions,” Albritton said, citing difficulties the state has faced in finding money to fund two new prison facilities.

He added that using bonds is just an option that will be used so that there is enough money.

“We are simply going to authorize an additional $500 million in bonds to be able to complete the construction of both facilities completely,” he said.

Amid decades-long overcrowding and a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over prison conditions, the Alabama Legislature in 2021 approved a $1.3 billion plan to build two 4,000-bed men’s prisons. One facility will be located in Elmore County; one will be in Escambia. The state used $400 million in COVID relief funds for the project, as well as $135 million from the General Fund, and borrowed the remainder.

But the cost of the Elmore County facility, named the Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex last year, has ballooned to more than $1.08 billion, consuming nearly all of the additional appropriations. The state also struggled to borrow the money needed to pay the initial cost.

“We were only able to borrow, when we went to market, $500 million of that $785 million,” Albritton said. “And then we discovered that the estimates were slightly inaccurate in that the cost of the Elmore is about $1.08 billion.”

This bill leaves the original proposal largely intact, with most of the modifications isolated to increasing the amount that the state can finance by $500 million to total $1.285 billion.

State prison officials have said the prison facilities will allow the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) to close facilities that have deteriorated and can no longer be used, which Albritton reiterated to committee members Wednesday.

In an interview with reporters after the meeting, Albritton declined to state the cost of the planned prison construction facility in Escambia, only saying that the state had accumulated enough funding to pay for 60% of the cost to construct the prison.

“We discovered that much of our funding that we were putting in was going unspent,” he said.

Albritton said, for example, unspent money because the ADOC has not been able to hire corrections officers.

“And we put conditional funding in for the last number of years to cover those. We haven’t been able to hire anybody,” he said.

Instead of using the allocated money for operating funds, Albritton said the state will shift those funds toward the cost of the new prison construction slated in Escambia.

ADOC still has vacant corrections officer positions that it needs to fill because of a court ruling after people who are incarcerated filed a lawsuit alleging they are not receiving adequate medical and mental health treatment.

“That is right, but we still have conditional funding to meet that when that occurs,” Albritton said regarding hiring more corrections officers in the future.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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SUMMARY: On this Wednesday morning, News 5, hosted by Shamani Baker and Simone Sherro, discusses various topics including current foggy road conditions and key news stories. The U.S. Postal Service resumes accepting international parcels from China and Hong Kong after a brief suspension related to tariffs. Pensacola police investigate a fatal crash on the Bayou Tahar Bridge. Dustin High School is considering a four-day school week, with strong community support. A Veterans Treatment Center in Mobile plans to expand, addressing high rates of opioid overdoses and suicides among veterans. Baldwin County allocates $4 million for infrastructural improvements.

The USPS lifts the suspension on packages from China and Hong Kong, a Northwest Florida school could have only four school days & the Beach Express is set to be expanded.

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Social justice groups set their agenda for 2025 Alabama legislative session

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
February 5, 2025

Social justice advocates plan to prioritize voting rights and reforms to the state’s criminal legal system in the 2025 legislative session.

The ACLU of Alabama released its list of legislative priorities at the end of January, which included protecting free speech and reproductive health, as well as protecting voting rights and the First Amendment.

Along with the list of priorities, the advocacy group has also identified a list of bills it will support and oppose.

“In the bills that we specifically identified, it was really important to us that we focus on freedom and choice, and expansion of both of those things,” said A’Niya Robinson, policy and organizing director for ACLU of Alabama.

The regular session of the Legislature began on Tuesday. Alabama legislative leaders said they planned to emphasize bills targeting crime and immigration.

Other social justice advocates are looking to steer legislators toward reform instead of the status quo, particularly on voting rights and access.

Voting rights has been at the forefront of priority issues since President Donald Trump falsely alleged that the 2020 election had been manipulated that engineered his loss to the eventual winner, President Joe Biden.

In the years following the election, the Alabama Legislature passed bills banning drop boxes for ballots; barring local governments from accepting private money to administer elections and criminalizing certain forms of absentee ballot assistance.

Following a lawsuit from civil rights groups, a federal judge blocked a portion of the law that limited a third party’s ability to provide ballot assistance, ruling that it violated portions of the Voting Rights Act.

“There is a lot happening within this state that feels very alarming,” Robinson said. “For example, if we take voting rights, there have been numerous bills from sessions past, with each bill there seems to be more and more encroachment, and more and more suppression of people’s right to just cast a ballot.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center also plans to advocate for voting rights bills during the session.

“Alabama voters face a range of obstacles that make voting in-person on Election Day a significant challenge — from onerous voter ID requirements and polling precinct changes to the closure of nearly half of the DMV offices in majority-Black counties that issue the required documentation,” the SPLC stated in its list of priorities.

Democratic legislators have filed bills addressing the issue.

Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville filed legislation in the offseason to allow early voting in the state.

HB 97, filed by Rep. Kenyatte Hassell, D-Montgomery, would allow people the opportunity to fix any issues that election managers find with their absentee ballot affidavit.

Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery and Rep. Adline Clarke, D-Mobile,  jointly filed a comprehensive voting rights bill in their respective chambers.

The Senate version, SB 7, automatically restores voting rights for some of those who lost their right to vote in the state. The bill also eliminates the need to provide an excuse to vote by absentee, permit same day voter registration and require the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office to have a statewide voter database. It would also create a Voting Rights Commission in the state that has the power to block measures from local governments that could limit voter access to the ballot box.

Clarke not only filed the companion bill, but also a host of others aimed at expanding people’s right to vote in the state.

The bill, HB 77, would “allow disabled individuals to designate someone to assist them with the absentee voting process, including mailing or hand-delivering their applications and ballots,” she said in a statement she emailed in January.

The ACLU of Alabama will also support bills to reform the criminal legal system.

“When you think about criminal legal reform, you also have to think about the conditions that incarcerated people are living under,” Robinson said. “You think about all the deaths that are occurring and all the violence.”

Civil rights groups also want to see changes to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.  Alabama Arise, for the first time, included reforming the parole system to its legislative priorities.

Thus far, Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, had been one of the few legislators who spearheaded efforts to reform the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, frustrated at the low rate that members have granted parole.

As recently as 2017, the parole rate has declined to single digits, and although the grant rate has increased to slightly more than 20% in recent months according to data from the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, England believes that reforms are still needed.

HB 40 would create a Criminal Justice Policy Development Council that would establish and implement a validated risk assessment for people who are incarcerated. This assessment would be used for parole guidelines and to create a classification system for people in prison that gauges their risk for criminal behavior.

It would require the parole board to make public its guidelines that it uses when deciding parole, and it mandates that they state a reason if they make a decision that deviates from the parole guidelines.

The bill also allows parole applicants to appeal decisions by the parole board should they be denied parole.

A message was left with England Tuesday seeking comment.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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