Alabama is building a billion dollar prison and using community college funding to do it.

Since 2022, Alabama has been trying to proceed with the construction of two new 4,000 bed mega-prisons with one in Elmore County and the other in Escambia County, a plan which had a budget of $1.3 billion. After they fell over $200 million short of the $725 million goal in private bond sales for the project, the State has been scrambling to find funding. Recently, the budget for the Elmore County Facility suddenly jumped from $623 million to $975 million, which is supposedly attributable to inflation and "the design." This means they will only have $300 million to build the second prison if the cost of the Elmore facility doesn't increase anymore.  What they are failing to mention is that the prison is being constructed over multiple sinkholes, likely putting the water table under it at risk of contamination. This may affect the quality of the drinking water in the area. To make up for the lack of bond sales, they want to take $100 million dollars from the community college system and put it into "prison education," to which constructing education facilities applies. There are no provisions for the staff.

We NEED to let them know that the public is seriously opposed to the project.