“If you are looking at beds, obviously those two facilities are standing open and unoccupied right now,” Allbaugh said. “That is a place to start. But there are other facilities in the state that we don’t know about yet that may have beds. And that is the purpose of talking to as many people as we possibility can.”

Allbaugh said private prison operator GEO Group has commented many times that the company wanted to expand at its Lawton Correctional Facility.

The state has a contract for 2,548 medium-security beds and 78-maximum security beds at the Lawton facility, according to the DOC website.

“I want to hear what GEO has to say,” Allbaugh said. “At the end of the day, if the numbers don’t work, regardless of who has the beds, then the numbers don’t work, and we will have to do something else.”

He expects to have an update to provide to the board in the next 30 days, Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said he was uncertain how the agency would pay for the additional beds.

He said he didn’t know if the agency would have to close existing facilities to pay for additional beds.

“It is one of the unknowns,” he said.