DOUGLAS - At 7:30 a.m. one recent morning, a group of 10 men was pouring concrete at a quiet corner on the northern edge of this border community.

Eight of the men earn just 50 cents an hour, allowing the cash-strapped city of Douglas to stretch its public-works dollars.

They are inmates from the Arizona State Prison Complex-Douglas 10 miles away - supplemented by one city worker and a detention officer - and they say they savor the chance to get out of prison and do something productive every day.

"It's an opportunity to get out and do some physical labor," said Anthony Perez, a 40-year-old Mesa resident serving a five-year sentence on burglary and drug charges. "It allows me to keep my mind focused on my future once I get out of here."

The benefits to cash-strapped municipalities as well as inmates are reasons Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan is pushing to take the program to other communities coping with dwindling tax revenues.

The agency has about 1,500 inmates putting in more than 1.8 million hours of labor every year through more than 100 agreements with governmental bodies around Arizona. But with about 13,000 minimum-security inmates in state custody, Ryan said there's plenty of room to grow.

"Inmate labor, in our estimation, is an underutilized resource," he said.

All those hours of 50-cent labor add up to significant savings for cities.

"It represents a cost avoidance of $12.1 million," Ryan said.

Communities like Douglas have come to rely on the labor pool that inmates in nearby prisons provide.

Douglas sits on the Mexican border, about 50 miles west of New Mexico. Its economy struggled after the smelter closed in the late 1980s. City leaders had less revenue to work with.

Michael Ortega saw the potential to fill that void in 1994.

Ortega, who was Douglas' public-works director at the time, said the relationship began with selling the program to residents who might have been concerned about inmates in orange jumpsuits doing maintenance at city parks and easing concerns of employees who feared the cheap labor pool would take their jobs.

"There were discussions amongst staff and employees, and we told them the reality is this: They're not taking your job," Ortega said. "They're helping you accomplish your job so I don't have to hire more staff, because I can't afford it."

In the 16 years since Ortega struck up a relationship with the prison warden, inmates have helped convert a former retail store into the town's library and built all the maple furniture in the building.

They have been instrumental in constructing a skate park and aquatic center and done dozens of smaller projects, such as building park bathrooms and performing routine maintenance.

On Thursday morning, a group of 14 inmates was busy demolishing the inside of the former Phelps Dodge Mercantile store in downtown Douglas. The building will eventually house a courtroom, a sheriff's substation and an arm of the Cochise County Health Department.

For now, it's another example of the cooperation and trust city employees have developed with the inmates.

"I don't hire inmates, I hire craft workers," said Armando Maza, the city employee supervising the demolition in the Phelps Dodge building.

Ortega, now Cochise County administrator, has taken to promoting the benefits of prison laborers to other cities long on projects and short on tax dollars.

In nearby Bisbee, a crew performs maintenance tasks every day at the Queen Mine, one of the area's major tourist attractions, which draws more than 50,000 visitors each year.

A group of schoolchildren from Tucson were thrilled with the prospect of going down into the mine. They didn't notice the three inmates clad in orange "ADC" jumpsuits.

That prospect of blending in suits Abel Suniga, a 35-year-old Phoenix resident serving a three-year sentence on drug charges.

"You keep busy, you know?" Suniga said as he finished chopping wood at the mine. "It helps the time go by quicker."

There are strict requirements for inmates like Suniga to get one of the sought-after jobs outside prison walls. And there is quick punishment for any who act up on the job.

The minimum-custody inmates must be within five years of being released and cannot have a criminal history that includes sex crimes or crimes of violence, such as manslaughter. They also cannot be subject to detainers from other agencies waiting to take custody once their sentence is up.

And they need to be working toward a diploma if they don't have one already.

Ryan said those factors motivate inmates to use their time behind bars to their advantage.

Research indicates such programs reduce recidivism among inmates, but Ryan said the jobs give convicts a taste of what will be expected after their sentence is up.

"It's going to be expected of them when they get out of prison," he said. "We don't want inmates sitting around idle doing nothing."