Prisons face bed shortage

Inmates pulled from county jails and returned to state prisons may find themselves sleeping on cots.

That's because the Utah Department of Corrections is running short on beds, and an expansion of the prison facility in Gunnison is almost a year behind schedule.

"It's a bit of a juggling act for us," corrections director Tom Patterson told the Deseret Morning News on Tuesday.

Right now, corrections is approximately 210 beds away from its maximum capacity. That includes beds at the Utah state prisons at Draper and Gunnison and beds in contracted prisons outside the state, as well as county jails.

With the Utah Department of Corrections' announcement that up to 300 of its most violent inmates being housed in county jails will be returned to the prisons, it has the potential to create a bed-space shortage until lesser-risk offenders can be swapped out.

"We're having some difficulties," Patterson said. "We may have to make some adjustments in bunking, depending on whether or not we can replace inmate for inmate. We may have to put out cots for a short period of time."

A new, 288-bed facility being built at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison is almost a year behind schedule, forcing corrections to run over its operational capacity.

"It's been deplorable the delays that this particular contractor has put us through," Patterson said.

A man who answered the phone at Gunnison-based Valley Builders, which has the contract to build the facility, declined to speak to the Deseret Morning News about the situation.

Reports prepared by the state Division of Facilities Construction and Management indicate the $14.6 million facility has faced a slew of problems.

"Some delay in precast walls attributed to drawing conflicts and poor shop drawing support. Result is lost time," an executive summary report said on June 1, 2006. "Contractor working on schedule to accelerate."

A month later, there was another delay that set construction back five to six weeks. For the next few months, the report revealed even more delays. By November 2006, state officials wrote that work appeared to be on pace.

A month later, it slowed again.

"Valley continues to battle the schedule without being able to predict a completion date," the Dec. 1, 2006, entry said.