An Alabama Senate committee today delayed action on a bill that would authorize $500 million in bonds to help pay for a new 4,000-bed men’s prison in Escambia County.

But Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, the bill’s sponsor, said he expects to advance the bill next week and expects it to pass the Legislature.

The Legislature authorized the Escambia County prison in 2021 as part of a construction plan that also included a 4,000-bed specialized care men’s prison in Elmore County. Lawmakers approved $1.3 billion for both prisons.

But the cost of the Elmore County prison rose to slightly more than $1 billion after an initial estimate of $623 million. That required legislators to find additional funding for the second prison in Escambia County.

The Elmore County prison, which includes special facilities for medical care and mental health care, is expected to be completed in 2026. It will be called the Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex. The governor has spearheaded efforts for Alabama to build prisons for the first time since the 1990s.

Read more: Alabama’s new $1 billion prison will be ‘larger than a lot of county seats’

Construction has not started on the Escambia County prison.

Albritton said the state has the money to finish the Kay Ivey Correctional Complex and has about 60% of the money for the Escambia County prison.

Albritton said he hopes construction can begin on the Escambia County prison in six to eight months. He said construction would likely take about three years.

The senator said no time is set for issuing the bonds. He said the bill will give the state assurances that the money will be available.

The bill increases the maximum amount of bonds that can be issued by the Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority from $785 million to $1.285 billion.

The authority tried to sell more than $700 million in bonds in 2022 but fell short of that goal, selling $509 million.

The Kay Ivey Correctional Complex and the Escambia County prison are phase 1 of the prison plan approved in 2021. The plan is not intended to increase the total number of prison beds in the state but to replace beds in the state’s aging, overcrowded, and understaffed prisons.

The Justice Department sued the state in 2020, alleging that violent conditions in the state’s men’s prisons violate the Constitution. The state has disputed the allegations of unconstitutional conditions but acknowledges problems.

Ivey and legislative leaders have said the new prisons are part of the solution.

The bill passed in 2021 says that three prisons – Staton and Elmore in Elmore County and Kilby in Montgomery County – will close within one year of the phase 1 prisons being completed.

The Alabama Department of Corrections closed part of Holman Correctional Facility near Atmore five years ago. Albritton said Fountain Correctional Facility, also near Atmore, which opened in 1928, is also likely to close.