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It's reported that a new prison complex north of Lincoln is over budget and behind schedule. Bids on the new prison must be in by the end of the day Tuesday, June 3. Nebraska Public Media’s Dale Johnson asked Rob Jeffreys, Director of Nebraska’s Department of Corrections, what happens after all the bids are in.
Rob Jeffreys: Well, we will go through each bid to ascertain if everybody's meeting scope and then we'll be able to meet with our team and some other subject matter experts and of course DLR, which is our architect firm, and they will be able to make a determination of who will be the bid award.
Dale Johnson: Do you have a best guess when the media would know about it?
Jeffreys: That I can't, because I don't know the timeframe to review the bids and how many come in. We will determine that and then we'll make an informed decision based on all of that, so I don't wanna give out a time. But what we do anticipate as soon as possible because we want to start construction this fall because we got a timeline that we want to stay within and as soon as we can get these bids awarded, the sooner we can get started on getting our prison built… which has been long waiting.
Johnson: Let's talk about money, sir. The legislature has set aside $350 million for construction, that was in 2023. I can't help but think that's not a realistic construction cost. A couple of different sources -- The Guardian and Construction Today -- both report Alabama, for example is building a new prison with a price tag of almost $1 billion. Georgia's got a new prison with a potential cost of $1.6 billion. You undoubtedly I've seen the reports the South Dakota SearchLight, the website news service, says that a 1,500 bed prison which is somewhat similar to the Nebraska prison has bids that have come in at $825 million. I've even seen $1 billion being thrown around in reports about that new South Dakota prison. So money has to be an issue. What's the answer to the money question?
Jeffreys: So you know to give you a solid answer I have to see those particular sites and site plans. What are the dimensions of the facilities? I don't know what acreage, what size of facility. We're building a multilevel facility which has 400 maximum beds, which is higher in security construction, and then we have medium beds which is lower level and then we got 600 minimum beds. So that's all lower cost. The two most expensive units that we have are maximum units. Now, I can't speak to all the other states, but I do know just a little bit from what I read in the paper, our building is completely different than what Dakota’s is building. Ours is multilevel. Theirs will all be maximum level so that's all the higher in construction beds. We don't have that in our projections or in our bidding process. But I do know this: I do appreciate that everybody's looking at Nebraska and how we’re able to get things done in a more productive way and be able to move forward in the most state of the art programming space, staying within the budget. That is our goal.
Johnson: I can't relate to building a prison, but I can relate to building a house. If my house is running over budget maybe I reduce the square footage or I lessened my lavish expectations, but a prison has to be state-of-the art. If it becomes necessary, where do you start cutting back on a new prison?
Jeffreys: Well, I don’t want to speak to that. I mean that's getting too far out on our skis right there. I think we will be within cost because of the way we went about it in the first place. I don't want to forecast that we're going to go over budget. We put a lot of effort into what we're trying to achieve. We did some cost measures on the front end, right, so we know what we have in front of us based on the architect design and based on the land layout.
Johnson: And the schedule. I searched the DOC website. I couldn't find any under construction photo. Only photos from the August 2024 groundbreaking. There are reports that construction is at least four months delayed. Is that accurate?
Jeffreys: No. I don't believe that to be true. Only I can say it took us at least a month or two to swap land. That put us behind the eight ball when we bought one piece of property and we negotiate with the city to be able to get a better site.
Johnson: What does the site look like now?
Jeffreys: Well, we've moved 1.4 million cubic feet of dirt to level a space and prepare for construction. I mean it is construction ready right now. That's important when we award this bid. We had a pre-bidders conference when a lot of folks came to go over the design and everything and then we did a tour out to the site so everyone's pretty well familiar with the site and how ready it is so we're ready.
Johnson: Let's look at the old penitentiary. I see the word “decommissioned.” What does that mean?
Jeffreys: Let me give you a little history on this old facility. The old prison facility is over 130 years old. It continuously has mechanical issues almost every week. I just ran some totals for the calendar year of 2024. There have been 240 issues ranging from steam leaks to water breaks to mechanical locks to HVAC. It was back in 2018, which predates me, that they did a study to see if it was able to be renovated and it was past it's span of life to the point where condition of confinement is a concern. Decommissioning requires us to be prepared to activate the new prison. So that means we have two things going on at one time. Work to activate the new prison and transfer of not just equipment but transfer staff. And the population that we have to take in consideration. There's also the city because all that infrastructure underneath of it. What does that look like? What is sustainable, what equipment can be taken with us and then what's the approach to start tearing things down. It's going to be a lengthy process. It's just not open the door and close the door when you are transferring people from one facility to the next facility. That compounds the issue. And then we think about what are we going to do with it afterwards. Are we gonna sell it, tear it down, what’s salvageable, who else wants to buy it? Those things have to be taken into consideration, too. It'll be the first time that I have been involved with the decommissioning and with the replacement facility. It’ll be the first time the state has done this so it's something that we're all gonna have to work together to make sure we do it collectively.
Johnson: Completion date for the new prison?
Jeffreys: We're looking at the fall of 2028. In summary, I would caution folks with the speculation of over pricing and not meet within the timeline. That's not the way to go about things when we're trying to bring about some positive change. That's the one thing I always like to talk with the team about is speaking in the positive nature. In the business that we are, I believe we can fulfill the timeline and we can stay within budget. And we believe we can provide a service to the state of Nebraska, keep our people safe and make sure we’re delivering the right type of program to make people more productive in society.
Johnson: Rob Jefferies, Director of Nebraska's Department of Corrections joining me on Nebraska Public Media. Thank you, sir.
Jeffreys: Thank you as always.