Jim Zeigler: Kay Ivey not accepting blame after her $3 billion prison rental plan failed

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Image source: Jim Zeigler

Speaking to the Montgomery Kiwanis Club Monday, Gov. Kay Ivey declined to accept any blame for the failure of her $3 billion prison lease plan.

Ivey stated, “This is not the fault of any one administration but is due to decades upon decades of neglect.”

Since the 2002 election, Ivey has been State Treasurer, Lt. Governor, and Governor the entire time.

In 2020, Ivey proposed a plan to award 30-year lease contracts to three consortiums of businesses, mostly to Tennessee-based CoreCivic.  Her plan would have paid them almost $100 million a year in rent.  At the end of the lease, the state would have owned no equity in the prisons — they still would have been 100% owned by the favored businesses.

After over $3 billion in rental payments, the state of Alabama would have to start over and pay for the prisons a second time.

Ivey did not go through the legislature for approval of her prison rental plan or for an appropriation.  She bypassed the legislature and proceeded with the plan by executive order.

With the legislative leadership mostly silent, citizens and State Auditor Jim Zeigler strategized against the Ivey plan.

“We documented the fatal flaws in the Ivey plan.  We sent that information to the underwriters who would have raised the upfront money to build the rental prisons.  We showed them legal flaws, financial flaws, political flaws, and the fact that the plan did not address the real problems in the prison system.  Those problems include lack of safety of staff and other inmates, lack of mental health services, poor rehabilitation for when an inmate returns to the free world, overcrowding, and recidivism,” Zeigler said.

One by one, the underwriters backed out, and the Ivey prison plan was pronounced dead in June 2021.

Now, Ivey has called a special session for Sept. 27 for the legislature to consider a new prison plan.  It will have the state building and owning the prisons with low-cost bonds.