Gov. Kemp proposes to spend hundreds of millions on Georgia prison renovation plan

ATLANTA - Gov. Brian Kemp is proposing a big burst of new spending on Georgia’s prisons, including planning another new correctional facility and launching an extensive renovation program.

Legislators are seeking solutions to a wide range of problems plaguing prisons that have sparked a federal investigation. Among them: a sharp increase in prisoner deaths; high rates of employee turnover and arrests for criminal activity; and a persistent problem with contraband cellphones and drugs.

Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver on Tuesday unveiled a plan to amend the current year’s budget to spend $458 million before the end of June, and to increase spending in the year beginning July 1 by another $145 million.

"Public safety is the number one priority of state government, and that is why we have taken a comprehensive and deliberate approach to strengthening law enforcement and improving our corrections system," Kemp said in a statement.

The meeting itself was unusual, with Oliver making budget requests before lawmakers are sworn in for the new two-year term on Monday and before Kemp presents the rest of his budget later next week.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, a Dublin Republican, repeatedly expressed impatience, calling on Oliver to speed up the work and saying Kemp’s decision to outline his budget now showed how seriously lawmakers are taking the problem.

"It is out of the ordinary, and I think it shows the emphasis that he and us, collectively, are putting on this issue," Hatchett said.

It’s part of a burst of spending on prisons across the South as conservatives focus on securely housing prisoners and back away from efforts to release more of them. In Georgia, that’s in part because many nonviolent offenders are no longer in prison. Oliver told lawmakers that three-quarters of the system’s 50,000 inmates were convicted of violent crimes.

Georgia is already building a 3,000-bed prison near Davisboro in Washington County. The spending plan calls for another $47 million to furnish that prison, atop the $451 million that lawmakers approved last year to build the structure, which would house offenders one to a cell. Oliver told lawmakers that the department wants another $40 million to start planning another prison, which Oliver indicated would likely have about 1,500 single-bed cells.

Much of the money would be one-time expenditures made out of Georgia’s billions in surplus cash, but those one-time expenditures would be stretched out over years. Some items, including hiring additional prison guards and paying them more, would become permanent parts of the state budget.

Oliver said prisons need 2,600 more employees to be fully staffed. He proposes hiring 882 more officers to fill part of the gap, or about 110 every three months, saying "Trying to hire 2,600 people in a fiscal year is just not possible."

Oliver said the department has increased the number of prison guards for three years in a row after seeing employment numbers plummet during the pandemic, but also proposed a 4% pay raise, saying further boosts in salary are needed.

One big focus is renovating current prisons, particularly to install new locks and control systems, but Oliver says Georgia must first empty out some current prison beds so crews can work unimpeded.

"The goal of this project is to do half a facility and actually do half the buildings at a time," Oliver said. "What’s taking so long right now is we can do only one building at a time."

He wants to contract for 446 additional private prison beds as well as buy four 126-bed modular prison facilities. Some lawmakers questioned the $93 million purchase of the modular prisons, suggesting the state should rent more private prison space instead.

Oliver also proposed a $50 million plan to combat cell phones inside prisons and drones dropping drugs, phones and other contraband from the outside.