Alabama House Speaker Calls for Halt to $676 Million Escambia County Prison Contract

ATMORE, AL (NewsRadio 92.3) -- Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter is calling for a halt to the state's second new men's prison project as Alabama moves forward with a $676 million construction contract for a facility in Escambia County.

The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority voted 7-1 Thursday to approve the contract with B.L. Harbert for the first phase of the Escambia County facility.

The prison is planned near Atmore.

Ledbetter wants Gov. Kay Ivey to stop the project while the state investigates delays and massive cost overruns involving the first new prison under construction in Elmore County.

That facility is now estimated to cost about $1.25 billion — more than $635 million over its earlier budget — and is about 85% complete.

Its completion has been pushed from October 2026 into sometime between March and May 2027.

Ledbetter says moving forward with another major prison contract before examining what happened with the first project represents an unacceptable financial risk.

Ivey disagrees.

The governor says Alabama's prison problems went unaddressed for years and her administration is carrying out the two-prison construction plan approved by lawmakers in 2021.

The Escambia County contract also drew concerns during Thursday's finance-authority meeting.

The facility has been reduced from a previously planned 2,056 beds to 1,618 beds, and some lawmakers serving on the authority said they received major contract changes only shortly before the vote.

The phase-one construction timeline is 1,244 days — nearly three-and-a-half years.

The Escambia County project has not been canceled, and the state currently intends to move forward.