WINDHAM – A $100 million bond proposed by Gov. Paul LePage would rebuild the Maine Correctional Center, placing the prison somewhere else on the state’s 260-acre parcel straddling River Road in Windham.

The proposal, seen as a surprise to many due to LePage’s refusal to sign bonds passed at the polls, was included in the governor’s two-year budget plan introduced last week.

“We do need it,” said Jody Breton, a department spokesman. “This proposal goes back to when we built the Maine State Prison and the Maine Correctional Center in Windham was Phase II of that construction, and we never got to Phase II. We’ve always known it was needed, but we haven’t got there until now.”

The existing prison, surrounded by high fencing, and hay fields and perched atop a small rise just east of the Presumpscot River, dates from the 1930s and is said to be in dire need of replacement by officials of the Department of Corrections.

Breton said the Windham prison houses medium- and minimum-security inmates and serves as the state’s intake/reception facility. She said inmates with sentences less than five years are processed and likely reside at Windham; those with sentences of more than five years go straight to the Maine State Prison in Warren.

If passed, the bond would provide money for building a new prison elsewhere on the department’s 260-acre parcel that stretches from the river to Highland Cliff Road. A new prison could be built on land across River Road, Breton said.?

“Our goal would be to build a new facility. We’d have to keep the old facility going until the new facility started so it couldn’t be on that footprint, but we own about 260 acres there. We can’t say on which side of the road it would be on, but we have plenty of land to locate one,” Breton said.

The prison is not up to standards used by modern prison systems, which design its units of cells, known as pods, in a V-shape or circular design that can be monitored by corrections officers stationed in a central control station. According to prison superintendent Scott Burnheimer, who has worked at the prison for 33 years, the building is inefficient regarding security since it’s been built piecemeal over several decades and feature nooks and crannies and corners that make observation difficult.

“It’s not necessarily unsafe, but it’s not conducive to your best security practices. Certainly you would build differently these days,” Burnheimer said.

He said sight lines in some of the housing areas are reduced and that corrections officers have to walk the row of cells to see the inmates. A central control station would allow better visibility, he said. The increase in efficiency could mean fewer corrections officers could run a pod.

“There are some pods that are very staff-intensive, and you would build differently so your sight lines are improved and a person would be able to supervise more prisoners. Some of our dorms have a lot of corners and there are dorms with few people in them. So it’s really staff-intensive. Those are the things you would improve when you have new construction,” Burnheimer said.

The prison has also had issues with overcrowding in the past, although levels have moderated. Burnheimer said some staff spend their days trying to find beds for prisoners, which he said is an inefficient use of their time and the taxpayer’s dollar. A new prison would likely increase the amount of beds to handle more inmates.

“We’re the reception center for the department, meaning 90 percent of the people that come to Maine Corrections come through the [Windham prison], so there are times when we have people sleeping on the floor because there are too many people coming in and we don’t have beds for them,” Burnheimer said.

Burnheimer said “it’s not safe having new people laying on the floor because those people are the people you know the least about. You haven’t had them very long.”

The new design would also be future-focused, said Breton, and could accommodate a larger prison population.

“We still have a few open beds in the entire system, so we’re able to maneuver. So while we don’t have a big overcrowding issue now, we’re trying to look down the road because it takes a little while to build these prisons so you’ve got to look five, 10 years down the road at what your population may be and plan for that.”

Asked if the inefficiencies regarding the existing prison pose safety issues, Burnheimer said, “inefficiencies could lead to safety issues, but obviously we train and deal with those issues as best we can. I do believe we have a safe facility and safe practices. I do say there are challenges due to those issues. For example, sometimes we have to put an extra officer on the floor to make sure we have enough supervision.”

The prison, with its population of 530 men and 92 women, employs 248.5 full-time positions with 60 to 70 contracted positions in medical and mental health counseling fields. The increase in efficiency doesn’t mean there would be fewer corrections officers, Breton said.

“[Rebuilding] may not reduce the number of positions because it may increase the number of prisoners we could have there,” she said, adding that the number of new workers would be less given the improved design. “For example, we doubled population and only added five positions at the Maine State Prison [in Warren].”

The news is welcome to those concerned with Windham’s economy. Tom Bartell, the town’s director of economic development, said, “People are employed there not only from the town but also the region, and it’s good to know they’re looking to reinvest in the prison itself.

“Certainly a reinvestment in that facility is good news for the people who work there, the support system around the prison. It also sounds like it would make it a better place for everyone to be, including the employees, so I think that’s what’s most important.”

The proposal is in Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed budget for the next two years, which goes to the Legislature for approval. LePage, known as a budget hawk, did not return requests for comment on his proposal, but state Sen. Gary Plummer, a Windham Republican who sits on the Criminal Justice and Public Safety committee that oversees the department of corrections, is so far in favor of LePage’s proposal.

“Depending on how they intend to pay for it, it would have a fair shot of getting through,” Plummer said.

Plummer said he has toured the Windham prison and said most units were built in the 1950s and 1960s and are in “dingy shape.” However, there are also three “very nice modern units,” including two men’s dorms and a women’s center, that would be salvaged since they were built only a decade ago. He sees reconstruction of the main prison as the best alternate.

“They’ve talked about renovating the older units but the concern is if you spend a lot of money trying to bring older facilities up to par, then you’ve got nicer older facilities but not what you could potentially have if there’s a chance of building new,” Plummer said.

Since the new construction would likely add more inmates, Plummer said local residents have little to fear regarding an increase in prisoners within town limits.

“It’s not a concern for me. They’re not planning to bring the super-max inmates that are housed in Warren that are considered truly dangerous. And in the modern facilities they should be more able to keep them on the premises. They’ve got a pretty good track record of not a lot of escapes, so that is initially not a concern to me,” Plummer said.

The proposed $100 million bond has come as a surprise to Maine politics-watchers since LePage hasn’t allowed issuing of bonds in recent years, even ones supported at the ballot box such as funding for land acquisitions through the Land for Maine’s Future fund. Plummer said conservatives in Augusta may be supportive of the prison project.

“I learned a long time ago that the mark of a true conservative is not necessarily opposing spending any money, but being sure you get a really good deal when you do spend money,” Plummer said. “And it may very well be that [LePage] sees this as potentially a good deal and something that conservative people would support.”

An aerial photograph of the Maine Correctional Center in Windham shows the sprawling campus made up of several dorms that have been built in stages since the 1930s, when the state took over the property. Gov. Paul LePage has included $100 million for reconstructing the prison in his next biennial budget.