A Democratic state lawmaker raised safety and competitive concerns about two companies selected by the state Tuesday to build additional prison space to house more than 2,200 male prisoners.
Rep. Buffie McFadyen of Pueblo West said The GEO Group Inc. has not built the 500-bed Pueblo facility it promised three years ago.
She also questioned whether GEO had an unfair bidding advantage on the new 1,504-bed facility it was selected to build in Ault. The company hired Nolin Renfrow, the former state director of prisons, to help it bid on the project after Renfrow left the department, she said. Renfrow worked for corrections when the request for bids was made public.
Neither Renfrow nor a representative of GEO could be reached Tuesday evening for comment. Katherine Sanguinetti, a spokeswoman for the department, said she didn’t know the factors that went into selecting GEO. And, she said, “I personally know that the DOC staff that were rating those bids have had no contact with (Renfrow) to keep it objective.”
Earlier this month, McFadyen asked lawmakers to audit the bidding process. She also questioned why the Corrections Corporation of America was selected to expand the Bent County Correctional Facility near Las Animas by 720 beds.
CCA owns and operates the Crowley County Correctional Facility where a riot broke out in 2004. McFadyen said she was concerned that the company has still not replaced the porcelain fixtures in its facilities after broken porcelain was used as a weapon during the riot.
A CCA representative could not be reached Tuesday evening for comment. The state, Sanguinetti said, expects to run out of beds for its prison population by the end of the year. The companies will pay for the cost of building and expanding the private prisons and the state will pay the companies to house its prisoners when the prisons are completed, she said.
The state will save about $194 million on construction costs, Sanguinetti said. But McFadyen, vice chair of the legis- lature’s capital-development committee, said the department did not ask for money this year to build facilities for new beds.
Sanguinetti said the department said it would need thousands of beds over five years.
Chris Frates can be reached at cfrates@denverpost.com or 303-820-1633.
