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Private prison contract renewals may cost Texas additional millions

At a House Appropriations Committee meeting today, House Corrections Chairman Jim McReynolds asked TDCJ chief Brian Livingston if private prison-contracts up for renewal might increase their rates and increase costs for the state.Livingston said that was possible, since contracts covering the 12,000 or so private beds for which TDCJ contracts are 5-7 years old. Most of these are up within the coming year and all new contracts should be negotiated by mid-2011. Livingston said that in general, for every dollar increase in per-inmate costs represented a $4.5 million cost increase to TDCJ.The committee was also told that after the first two days, all health care costs for inmates at private prisons are paid for by TDCJ. So the committee was cautioned against comparing per-inmate costs between private units and TDCJ's state facilities because the privates' costs per-inmate don't include healthcare costs.continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 08, 2010 (boomark / email).