DEMOCRAT: DON'T MOVE ON PRISON

State Should Keep Options Open For Now, Burke Says

Madison - The leading opponent of a proposal to buy or lease a private
prison under construction in Stanley says Wisconsin likely will end up
acquiring the prison.

But it's not a move the state should make now in the state budget,
according to Sen. Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee), co-chairman of the Joint
Finance Committee.

When Senate Democrats offered their budget alternative last week,
absent was a provision giving the Thompson administration the
authority and funding to buy or lease the 1,200-bed medium security
prison.

The Dominion Venture Group, based in Edmond, Okla., expects to
complete the project northeast of Eau Claire in February. Dominion has
proposed leasing the prison to the state for $6.25 million a year, but
has not said how much it would cost to buy it.

"It essentially means that we're keeping our options open," Burke said
of the Senate Democrats' decision to exclude the Stanley prison option
from their budget alternative.

"We may very well end up owning the Stanley prison one way or the
other eventually," he said. "This might even put the state in a better
bargaining position. It might either prompt an offer to sell by the
private company, or the state may exercise the power of eminent domain
in the future."

The budget amendment approved by the committee says that the Building
Commission would have the power to condemn and claim the prison for a
fair price. But Burke argued the state already has that authority.

When the finance committee added the amendment, Burke and others
objected, saying the state should decide the location of prisons, not
private companies that build them on speculation, hoping to take
advantage of Wisconsin and its crowded prison system.

The Stanley prison posed a dilemma for many Democrats. They opposed
shipping inmates to other states to relieve crowding in Wisconsin's
prison system. They also objected to what they considered Dominion's
arrogance in building the prison and expecting the state to buy it.

Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) had voted for the Stanley budget amendment
on the finance committee. He lost the argument in his caucus, but he
held out hope that the authority and funding might win the
Legislature's approval before the budget goes to the governor's desk
for his signature.

"I'm disappointed," Jauch said. "There is a sense of spite by many
legislators and I believe by the administration about the manner in
which the Dominion Group developed this prison. There is anger about
their arrogance.

"I believe the reluctance to embrace the prison is more representative
of a disdain for the company, the way they developed the project and
seemed to be holding the state hostage, than it is out of a desire not
to use the facility."

Jauch said the state remains in dire need of beds, and Stanley
deserved the jobs and economic benefit more than communities in
Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee and West Virginia, where the state now
sends inmates.

If the state purchased or leased the Stanley prison, it could save $25
million on so-called contract beds in other states under the finance
committee version of the budget.

In excluding the Stanley project from their budget, Senate Democrats
restored the $25 million, bringing to $55 million the total funding
allowed for contract beds during the next two years.

Thompson had proposed spending an additional $101.2 million to rent
space elsewhere for 6,161 more prisoners. His budget anticipated an
inmate population increasing from roughly 18,000 to approximately
26,823 by July 2001.

However, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated the population would
be just under 24,000 inmates by July 2001.

In their budget alternative, Senate Democrats also included the
following provisions:

Require corrections to return 1,000 inmates from out-of-state prisons
in 2001 and place them in Wisconsin county jails if counties have
space and can house them for $57 a day or less. Expand a controversial
community corrections program known as intensive sanctions but allow
only non-violent offenders to be released to a program involving
electronic monitoring. The program now has about 475 offenders, but
Thompson proposed reducing that to about 200. Senate Democrats would
allow as many as 1,075 offenders and provide 69 more agents to
supervise them.