New Mexico: State may buy Wackenhut facilities.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/200280news12-15-00.htm
Friday, December 15, 2000
State May
Purchase Prisons
By S.U. Mahesh
Journal
Capitol Bureau
SANTA FE � The Legislative Finance
Committee is
appraising the two private prisons in
Hobbs and Santa
Rosa with a possibility of turning
them into state agencies.
An official for
Florida-based Wackenhut Corrections,
which operates the
prisons, said the company is willing to
negotiate if
New Mexico lawmakers want to purchase the
facilities in Lea and Guadalupe counties.
The committee
on Thursday directed General Services
Secretary
Steven Beffort to conduct the appraisals and
determine a fair market value on each prison.
The
directive comes a day after Corrections Secretary
Rob
Perry told lawmakers that his department is
negotiating a new contract with Wackenhut that would
allow the state to either buy or lease the two private
prisons.
The Legislative Finance Committee
hasn't made a
decision on whether to purchase the
prisons, but its
chairman suggested the time is
right.
"Since we have a little bit of more money,
it would be a
good thing to consider," Sen. Ben
Altamirano, D-Silver
City, said referring to a $367
million surplus expected this
fiscal year.
Altamirano, who also chairs the Senate Finance
Committee, said he didn't know if his colleagues support
buying the prisons.
But he added, "I
personally support it if the price is
right."
Retiring Sen. Billy McKibben, R-Hobbs, said the
Legislature should use the surplus to buy both prisons as a
one-time capital investment.
"I think it
would be a prudent thing to buy the darn
things,"
McKibben said.
During the 1998 legislative session, a
proposal for the
state to buy both prisons for $68
million, while they were
still under construction,
passed the Senate but died in a
House committee.
The 1,200-bed Hobbs prison opened in May 1998.
The
Santa Rosa facility with 600 beds began
accepting inmates
in January 1999.
Wayne
Calabrese, president of Wackenhut, said he
couldn't put
a fair market value on the prisons because
several improvements have been made to both since they
were opened.
"We have to get an appraisal of
our own," Calabrese said
Thursday in a phone
interview from Palm Beach Garden,
Fla.
Wackenhut
and its partners are willing to negotiate any
proposals to sell the prisons, he said.
The proposed
corrections department contract with
Wackenhut also
calls for a per diem increase from $49.88
a day to
$53 a day per inmate. That would cost New
Mexico
taxpayers an additional $1.2 million a year to
house
state inmates in private prisons.