COAL TOWNSHIP - The expansion of the state prison in the township came in more than $3 million under budget.
The state allocated $15.5 million for the creation of J Block, a 128-prison cell unit, at State Corrections Institution at Coal Township.
It ended up costing $12.34 million for design and construction, according to Troy Thompson, press secretary for Department of General Services.
Requests to Thompson for further details on how the project came in under
budget were not answered.
The new unit, J Block,
became functional Dec. 7, 2011, when inmates were transferred from an existing unit inside the prison.
It's home to special needs inmates as well as those engaged in "intensive" drug and alcohol treatment, said Thomas McGinley, acting public information officer at SCI/Coal Township.
That leaves vacant the unit once occupied by those inmates.
"When it (the old unit) does go operational again, the inmate complement will obviously rise," McGinley said.
Since one unit opened and another closed, no additional staff were hired, according to Susan Bensinger, deputy press secretary, Department of Corrections.
The prison's inmate population was 2,048 when McGinley spoke to The News-Item early last month. He expected the population would reach 2,300 when the vacant unit is populated, which he said would occur within the calendar year.
The expansion project was announced in January 2009 - one of seven corrections construction projects approved by the Legislature to the tune of $862 million.
It is among the first of the seven to be completed.
A new prison in Centre County, SCI/Benner, remains under construction while another new facility in Montgomery County, SCI/Phoenix, is in the beginning stages of construction at the site of the Graterford facility, Bensinger said.
A third new prison planned for Fayette County was scrapped, she said, citing logistics and construction site issues.
"It really didn't make sense to build in the western part of the state," she said.
New housing units at SCI/Cambridge Springs, Crawford County, a female institution; SCI/Pine Grove, Indiana County, a site for young adult offenders; and SCI/Forest, Forest County, have not yet opened, Bensinger said.
Another new unit at SCI/Pine Grove, one of three planned, has opened, she said.
Rising prison population was cited in 2009 when the projects were announced. At the time, a spokesperson said the state's inmate population exceeded 43,900 compared to 37,995 in 2001.
The state prison population was even higher last month at 51,600, according to McGinley.