The Gov. Kay Ivey administration is considering two main approaches to a plan to build three new men’s prisons – issue bonds to pay for construction or enter a lease agreement with private companies that build the prisons.

Ivey said during her inaugural address Monday that her administration would end decades of prison system neglect by replacing costly, at-risk facilities.

Bob Horton, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, said today an analysis being done by Hoar Program Management, LLC, will help determine if the ADOC will pursue a bond issue or the build-lease option.

The Legislature rejected the bond issue approach under former Gov. Robert Bentley.

If the ADOC chooses the build-lease option, one or more private firms would build the prisons to state specifications and lease the prisons to the state, which would maintain operational control and management, Horton said. The process would involve competitive bids, Horton said.

Ivey’s press secretary, Daniel Sparkman, said the governor would announce her prison plan in the next couple of weeks. Sparkman said all options remain on the table.

The Ivey administration’s approach has raised questions in the Legislature. In December, the Legislature’s Contract Review Committee delayed the ADOC contract with Hoar Program Management, which is a $10 million addition to an earlier $1.5 million contract. The Contract Review Committee can delay contracts for up to 45 days but cannot block them, and the delay period on the Hoar Program Management contract ends later this month.

Rep. Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, one of the lawmakers who held up the contract, said questions remain.

England said he’s concerned that if the Ivey administration chooses the build-lease option it could obligate the state for an expensive long-term lease more expensive than the Bentley prison plan that lawmakers rejected.

Bentley sought legislative approval of a plan to borrow $800 million to build four large prisons and close most existing ones. It received extensive debate and modifications in the Legislature in 2016 and 2017 but did not pass.

Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told the Contract Review Committee in December that the new plan to build three prisons would cost more, close to $1 billion, partly because two years have already passed since lawmakers rejected the Bentley plan.

“We’re spending money to create a plan or help create a plan that we’ve already rejected,” England said. “Unfortunately, it was rejected when it gave us more prisons for less money. So now, the reiteration of this actually is less prisons for more money. It’s amazing.”

England questioned the fact that Tutwiler Prison, which is almost 80 years old, would not be replaced under the new plan.

“It’s the only women’s prison we have,” England said. “It’s one of the worst facilities. And I think that any plan that requires us to spend a billion dollars should at the very least deal with that.”

Asked why Tutwiler wasn’t part of the current plan, Horton said in an email: “The current prison plan addresses the infrastructure revitalization needs of the men facilities that have a population of more than 18,000 inmates, less than 50 percent staffing, and higher operational cost. The ADOC recognizes the need for a modern women’s prison that could be considered under a separate plan.”

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, who has led prison and criminal justice reform efforts in the Legislature, said he would not oppose Ivey pursuing the build-lease option without legislative approval. He doubts the Legislature could agree on a plan to fund prison construction.

“The issue in the Legislature is, every time we take it on we get to allowing politics to take precedence over where the facilities should go,” Ward said. “You have people say, ‘I want one in my area,’ or, ‘Don’t close my prison, close this one over here.’

“And we have tried this and tried this and we have failed each time.”

The plan under Bentley called for closing most existing prisons and using the savings from those closings to pay for the cost of the bond issue. Dunn told the Contract Review Committee in December that subsequent analysis has confirmed that savings from closing old facilities would pay for the cost of new ones, and that’s part of the new plan.

Dunn, however, also told the committee that fixing the prison system would require more money. The prisons are filled beyond capacity and, as Horton noted in his statement, have less than half the needed security staff.

Ward said addressing the shortage of correctional officers is the second key component to fixing the prison system and said it would require more funding from the Legislature, probably about $40 million more a year.

The shortage of staff is a key issue in an ongoing federal lawsuit over mental health care for prisoners. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled in 2017 that mental health care was “horrendously inadequate” and failed to meet constitutional standards.

Since then, the state has been taking steps to respond to remedial orders issued by Thompson, including orders to hire more correctional staff and mental health staff.

“What we committed to Judge Thompson was we’re going to do roughly 1,800 to 2,000 more officers,” Ward said. “There’s no way around hiring more officers.”

England said the state needs new prison facilities but does not think the Ivey administration should proceed on such an expensive plan independently of the Legislature.

“I think that is a perfect discussion that the public at large needs to be privy to and have a part of because I do think that new facilities need to be built," England said. “And I’m not talking about for the purposes of just incarcerating people. But more so because we need to reduce the size of the population but also make sure that their accommodations are at the very least constitutional."