PINE BLUFF -- The Arkansas Board of Corrections voted unanimously Thursday to work with two southeast Arkansas counties in putting a private, for-profit jail in that area of the state to help alleviate a glut of offenders in need of bed space.
Yet even after the board approved the 20-year contract, the status of the project remains uncertain.
The "on again, off again" discussions to build the lockup have spanned several years, said board Chairman Benny Magness. The two counties involved, Drew and Bradley, have expressed a desire to work with LaSalle Corrections, a private company based in Louisiana. The jail would house state inmates and county prisoners.
No representatives for either county or LaSalle attended the Board of Corrections meeting in Pine Bluff to discuss the project. Before the board acted, Corrections Secretary Wendy Kelley told members that the county attorneys had not yet had a chance to review the contract.
Drew County Attorney C.C. "Cliff" Gibson said in a phone call later Thursday that he was preparing to review the language drawn up by the Department of Corrections. His boss, County Judge Robert Akin, said he was sure some parts of the contract approved by the prison board would have to be "stricken."
In addition, neither of the counties have reached a formal agreement with LaSalle to build and operate the 600-bed jail, Akin said.
No competitive bidding process was done to select LaSalle as the likely operator, according to Akin and Gibson. Akin said he toured one of the company's facilities in Louisiana, and "it was a nice place." Gibson said he would review the contract to see if it would allow for the Drew County Quorum Court to waive competitive bidding.
Bradley County's County Judge Klay McKinney did not return a request for comment Thursday.
Jon Gilmore, the Arkansas lobbyist for LaSalle who also is a former staff member to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said Thursday that LaSalle is pleased to see the project "moving forward" but declined to comment further on the ongoing negotiations.
Under the parameters of the plan for a regional jail previously reported on by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Department of Corrections would contract directly with the counties to house up to 500 state inmates at the facility. Separately, the counties plan to contract with the private operator, LaSalle, to run the facility and house local offenders awaiting trial.
Despite the counties not having officially agreed on an operator for the jail, the contract approved by the Board of Corrections specifically names LaSalle.
Magness said writing LaSalle into the contract was an oversight that could be corrected without additional approval by the board. The contract, he said, was drawn up based on the state's agreement with Bowie County, Texas, to house more than 300 state inmates at the LaSalle-operated Bowie County Correctional Center.
"I just don't want the Board of Corrections to look like it's not cooperating to get this done," Magness said of the rush to approve the jail contract. "We've done our part."
No private adult lockups have operated in Arkansas since 2001, when the previous private contractor left the state amid concerns about staffing and conditions at its prisons.
Since then, however, the state prison population has continued to grow. The population is beyond the capacity of state facilities, filling county jails with an overflow of prisoners.
In Bradley County, where there is no jail, local offenders must be sent to lockups in nearby counties to await trial.
In 2015, the prison system began its contract to send several hundred prisoners out of state to Texas. Magness said building a regional jail in southeast Arkansas would allow the state to move those prisoners back to Arkansas, while adding space to transfer even more people from other state prisons or from the Division of Community Correction, which operates several lockup facilities for probationers and parolees.
Under the terms of the state's contract, the Department of Corrections would pay $44 a day to house each prisoner at the jail, or about three-quarters average cost at state-run prisons. Akins, the county judge, said he was quoted a cost of $32.50 per inmate per day by LaSalle, which was less because county jail inmates do not require the same level of services, such as GED courses.
"We're not reforming our people because they haven't been convicted," Akin said.
Akin said he was told by LaSalle that it would cost about $24 million to build the jail, paid for by LaSalle, creating between 100 and 124 jobs.
A Section on 09/27/2019