Prison deadline looms

RAYMONDVILLE — The clock is ticking toward Willacy County’s deadline to present the U.S. Marshals Service with its request to take over operations of a county-owned 580-bed federal prison as part of a move to save about 200 jobs.

On Thursday, county commissioners are set to consider submitting their request to the Marshals Service, which laid out a March 31 deadline.

Meanwhile, County Judge Aurelio Guerra is questioning whether commissioners will vote to submit the request.

“I’m really pushing it,” he said Tuesday, referring to his press to urge commissioners to submit the request.

If commissioners fail to submit the request before the deadline, Guerra said he doesn’t know whether county officials would lose their chance to take over the Willacy County Regional Detention Facility’s operations — and save the jobs paying some of the best wages in this farming county.

“Most certainly I’m concerned,” Raymondville Mayor Gilbert Gonzales said. “We most certainly need those jobs.”

Finalizing the county’s request

Since last year, commissioners have been working with Management and Training Corporation, a national private operator which has run the prison since it opened in 2003, to take over operations.

For weeks, commissioners have been working with the company to finalize the county’s request to the Marshal’s Service.

“There’s a lot to cover from different angles and we’re not familiar with the services it takes to run a facility,” Guerra said, referring to the information the Marshal’s Service is requesting.

As part of their request, commissioners are detailing the county’s plans to provide services such as food and transportation while placing about 120 prison employees on its payroll, Guerra said.

“We’re looking at each and every part of the submission,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re absolutely comfortable with what we plug in. We’re not taking anything for granted.”

The county’s request would help the Marshals Service determine the amount of money it would pay the county to house each of its inmates, Guerra said, who expects the prison’s annual operating costs could climb to about $15 million.

As part of the commissioners’ plan, the county would put the prison’s employees on its payroll while contracting with MTC to provide services such as food, medical care and transportation.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Joe Salazar would oversee the prison’s employees.

Planning a bigger payroll

At the county’s administration building, Ruben Cavazos, the county’s treasurer, said officials plan to place more employees on the payroll after the prison returns to “full capacity.”

Under MTC, the 582-bed prison has employed about 200 employees.

If the county takes over the prison, the Marshals Service would cut back on the number of inmates transferred to the prison until operations are running “smoothly,” Cavazos said.

“If the county takes it over, it’s not supposed to be at full capacity,” he said. “In a year, if everything runs smoothly, they’ll increase the number of inmates and be at full capacity.”

Meanwhile, Salazar’s told commissioners he expected the Marshals Service to cut down on the number of inmates it transfers to the prison if operations changed hands.

Under the county’s operation, commissioners would work to maintain the number of its inmate transfers, Guerra has said.

With its contract set to expire March 31, MTC has moved out all of the prison’s inmates, David Martinson, MTC’s spokesman, stated.

Background

In January 2021, President Joe Biden ordered the Justice Department phase out its contracts with private prison operators, giving MTC a September deadline to cease operations of the Willacy County prison.

“To decrease incarceration levels, we must reduce profit-based incentives to incarcerate by phasing out the federal government’s reliance on privately operated criminal detention facilities,” the order states.

Then in September, federal officials granted a six-month extension, allowing MTC to continue running the prison until March 31.

Since opening in 2003, the prison’s economic impact has stretched across this rural county struggling with one of the state’s highest jobless rates.

Now, the prison pumps about $400,000 a year into county coffers, Cavazos said.

Meanwhile, in Raymondville the prison pays the city about $250,000 a year in water and sewer revenue, City Manager Eleazar Garcia said, adding estimates show it pays wages of about $20 an hour, some of the highest in the area.