Prison Board OKs Contract Despite Ledbetter’s Warning

TL;DR: Alabama’s prison finance board approved a $676 million construction contract for the Escambia County prison despite House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter’s call for a pause. Gov. Kay Ivey defended the vote and her administration’s oversight, while Ledbetter demanded an investigation into the unfinished Elmore prison.

Alabama’s prison finance board voted 6–1 Thursday, Oct. 29, to advance construction of the State’s second new men’s prison, moving ahead despite House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter’s plea to stop until lawmakers get answers about the first project’s rising costs and delays.

The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority approved a $676,056,865 contract with B.L. Harbert for the first phase of the Escambia County facility. The overall project budget reportedly stands at $846,443,827, according to Department of Corrections figures.

Yet the first phase will provide fewer beds than previously planned: 1,618, down from 2,056. Representative Rex Reynolds (R-Huntsville) cast the lone vote against the contract and the other measures.

Reynolds told 1819 News he received a briefing the day before the vote and change orders within an hour of it. He questioned the State’s ability to manage two projects of this size at once.

“I just had some concerns, and I just couldn’t support it,” Reynolds said.

Reporting also described approval of two related measures. The official meeting agenda listed resolutions covering administration of both prison projects and authority to declare defaults and pursue contract remedies on the Elmore facility.

Governor Kay Ivey confirmed the contract vote in a statement posted on Facebook and defended the decision to proceed.

“Today's action gives the green light for building construction on the Escambia facility to go forward. This major, positive step enhances the State's capabilities and allows us to better manage the violent individuals that are sentenced to the care of Corrections,” Ivey wrote.

The Governor said prison problems had been neglected long before she took office in April 2017. She also defended her administration’s openness, a central point of Ledbetter’s criticism.

“I also committed to the people of Alabama I would run an open, honest and transparent Administration, and we have not wavered from that.”

Ivey said the State was carrying out the construction framework lawmakers approved in 2021. She described her administration as focused on protecting taxpayers while moving both projects forward.

“Throughout the appropriations process over the last five years, I am extremely proud that we have been able to save the money necessary to make these facilities a reality in a fiscally responsible way.”

Her statement made it clear she intended to press ahead.

“While I cannot speak for others, I am someone who refuses to kick the can down the road. We are doing not only what is now required by law but also what is right and necessary.”

Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) offered a sharply different view.

“I think the world of Governor Ivey, but her administration's handling of the construction of Alabama's two new men's prisons is flat out wrong,” he wrote in the Facebook post accompanying his Oct. 29 letter to the governor.

“Taxpayers deserve to understand what has transpired during the failed construction of the first facility before they are asked to foot the bill for a second.”

In the two-page letter, Ledbetter said a July 20 briefing with Ivey’s staff and Corrections Commissioner Greg Lovelace revealed that completion of the Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex in Elmore County had slipped to between March and May 2027.

He accused ADOC of losing control of the project and being reluctant to press contractor Caddell Construction for fear it might walk away. Those are Ledbetter’s allegations, and have not been proven.

He put the first prison’s cost overrun at more than $635 million and said the two projects would cost well over $2 billion, compared with the original $1.3 billion plan.

“Legislative leadership has not been given the opportunity to review a single change order or site rendering. We do not even know what we are being asked to pay for,” Ledbetter wrote in the letter. He also said that the project had descended into “a complete and total chaotic mess.”

He asked Ivey to halt the second facility and called for a full investigation into construction of the first.

ADOC has confirmed serious delays at Elmore. In its Oct. 20 update, the Department said construction was more than 85% complete but Caddell had missed the Oct. 15 contractual deadline.

The Department said about $14.2 million in contract damages was due and that it had applied withheld funds toward that amount. Another $7.1 million would become due Nov. 16 if the project remained unfinished.

Caddell has said it remains committed to completing the prison and has expanded work shifts and its workforce, according to the Alabama Reflector.

Thursday’s clash follows years of disputes over how Alabama would replace its aging prisons.

An earlier plan to lease privately built prisons faltered in 2021 after financing firms withdrew. WAFF reported that three underwriters had backed out amid questions from lawmakers and prison activists.

Lawmakers then approved a roughly $1.3 billion construction package in October 2021. It included two planned 4,000-bed men’s prisons and work on other facilities, backed in part by $785 million in authorized bonds and $400 million in federal pandemic relief funds.

The use of COVID relief money drew fierce objections. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL-07) argued that it should help people and communities recover from the pandemic rather than pay for decades of prison neglect.

By 2025, lawmakers were being asked to approve another $500 million in borrowing capacity. Ivey signed SB60 that April, raising the bond ceiling from $785 million to $1.285 billion, as ALPolitics.com reported. The law authorized additional borrowing; it did not itself issue the full $500 million in bonds.

Now, the Elmore prison alone carries a roughly $1.25 billion price tag. Combined with the reported Escambia budget, the two projects total about $2.1 billion.

Thursday’s vote keeps the second project moving. It leaves Ledbetter’s demand for an investigation into the first unresolved, and the Speaker and Governor at odds.

Speaker Ledbetter’s letter is attached below: