[I]f the Windsor prison is closed to help close the state budget gap, as many as 100 additional prisoners could be sent out of state, according to Andy Pallito, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections.
Closing the Southeast State Correctional Facility, which is the oldest and smallest prison in the state, was suggested last week as part of a budget cutting proposal spearheaded by Rep. Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, that would close an $18.6 million budget shortfall. Shutting down the prison would save the state an estimated $820,000, according to the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office.
Under the proposal, all the prisoners at Windsor would be sent to out-of-state prisons, Pallito said. That outcome would undermine the Shumlin administration’s long-term plan to reduce the number of prisoners housed in out-of-state beds.
“This obviously would take that goal and push it further out,” he said.
The effort to bring Vermont inmates back to the state has had some successes, Pallito said. Earlier this year, the out-of-state population dipped below 400. As of this week, 340 Vermont prisoners are in out-of-state beds. Most are housed in Kentucky. A few dozen are in an Arizona jail.
The state’s contract with the Corrections Corp. of America is set to expire on June 30, 2015, and the state is finalizing negotiations for a new contract. The department is looking at two vendors, CCA and a different private company. Pallito expects to announce the contract in early April.
Lisa Menard, deputy commissioner of corrections, said contract negotiations would not be impacted if the Windsor facility is shut down. The Corrections request for proposals was for up to 600 out-of-state beds, she said.
Under the governor’s budget, Vermont facilities will house 60 federal prisoners from the U.S. Marshals service, for which the state would be paid $129 per prisoner per day.
The proposal to close Windsor prison is still in an early phase, Pallito noted. “There are many moving parts at this point,” he said in an email statement Wednesday night.
Rep. Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, a member of the House Appropriations Committee who oversees the DOC parts budget, sees the proposal to close Windsor as an opportunity to improve services for inmates as they leave the system.
“Let’s prepare to put together a suite of services that enables people to exit facilities successfully,” Hooper said to her committee members on Wednesday.
Under Hooper’s proposal, the prison would be closed in 2017 — so there would not be any immediate savings for the budget House Appropriations lawmakers are working on now.
Hooper suggests using $1 million in savings from the declining out-of-state prison population toward setting up new transitional housing and providing funds to help people get their feet on the ground as they leave the system.
Hooper cited community justice centers, as well as the Collaborative Systems Integration Project (CSIP), run by Washington County Mental Health Services as programs that would be important in providing transitional services for inmates.
There are more than 200 prisoners in Vermont that have served their minimum sentences but continue to live in prisons because they do not have adequate housing. The state could reduce pressure on the corrections system if it provided more housing for prisoners who have finished their sentences, Hooper said.
According to Pallito, many of the people who have difficulty transitioning from prison to community life have been convicted of a violent or sexual offense, and are at a high risk to reoffend.
“I don’t think there’s any way that we can responsibly say, ‘Let’s just let them out,’” Pallito said.
The DOC recently opened a 20-bed transitional housing facility in Rutland, Pallito said. That process took nearly two years to complete.
Tom Marsh, town manager of Windsor, said the town receives many benefits from hosting the prison.
“There isn’t really the stigma attached to that prison that you may find elsewhere,” Marsh said.
The prison property is more than 900 acres in total, with almost all of it open to public use for recreation.
Work crews from the prison help the town with snow shoveling in the winter, and they take care of mowing and maintaining the local cemetery. They recently painted the interior of the local police department. Marsh’s biggest concern, he said, is that the facility would be left vacant if the prison closed.
“We certainly wouldn’t benefit from them leaving,” Marsh said.
If the prison closes, it would mean the loss of more than 50 jobs, Pallito said.
The Vermont State Employees Association has raised concerns about the potential closure.
“Closing the Windsor facility is a stupid idea, plain and simple,” Dave Bellini, chair of VSEA’s corrections unit said in an email statement last week. “The State is already being pressured by several groups to bring hundreds of Vermont inmates back home from the private prisons in Kentucky and Arizona.”
Suzi Wizowaty, of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, strongly objects to the proposal to send more Vermont prisoners out of state.
“It would not be difficult to find 100 inmates currently incarcerated who don’t need to be,” Wizowaty said in an email statement Wednesday.