Hours after many details of a long-negotiated bipartisan budget deal were announced, Republican leaders of the budget writing committee said they plan to approve the closure of the troubled Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Joint Finance Committee co-chairs announced a decommissioning date for the notorious prison early Tuesday. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported closing the prison for years.
Details of the closure were sparse in the time before that committee was scheduled to meet and finalize the state budget. But lawmakers said that the facility would be closed by 2029.
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“We’re investing across the entire state system, including moving forward plans in the Department of Corrections to make sure that we right size and innovate in that area for the future,” said Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, who co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee.
Evers had called for the prison to be shuttered as one step in a multitiered, half-billion dollar prison overhaul in his own budget proposal.
GOP lawmakers did not say which elements of that plan would be included in their own motions, which are expected to be taken up in committee later today. The committee is also expected to vote on the rest of the budget, including funding for the Universities of Wisconsin system and Medicaid.
Born said the committee would approve “planning money” for some of Evers’ other prison-related proposals, but declined to offer more details.
“We’ll provide funding to continue to move forward on those type of investments in the capital budget that are needed to change the prison system for the future,” he said.
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