The Alabama Senate has approved a bill to add $500 million to how much the state can borrow for prison construction.

The state expects to borrow money through a bond issue to help build a 4,000-bed men’s prison in Escambia County.

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, sponsor of the bill, said the timing and amount of the bond issue has not been decided.

The Escambia County prison will be the second of two prisons approved by lawmakers in 2021.

The first, a 4,000-bed specialty care men’s prison in Elmore County, the Kay Ivey Correctional Complex, is under construction and expected to be finished next year.

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.

The Legislature approved the two prisons in 2021 and approved $1.3 billion for both.

But the cost of the Elmore County prison has risen 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.

Albritton, who is chairman of the Senate’s General Fund budget committee, said the state has the money to finish the Elmore County prison and to start the Escambia prison.

Albritton said the bill passed today is needed so the state can be ready to issue bonds when the timing is right.

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

The authority issued $509 million in bonds in 2022. The prison funding plan approved in 2021 also included $400 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus relief bill, and $154 million from the General Fund.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, asked Albritton how tariffs imposed by the Trump administration might affect the cost of the Escambia County prison.

Albritton said that was unknown but said it was important that state be ready to move on the project without any unnecessary delays, which is the reason for the bill raising the bonding authority.

Alabama’s prison construction 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.

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.

Before the latest projects, Alabama had not built a prison since 1996.

Albritton’s bill passed the Senate today 32-0. It moves to the House.