Georgia corrections commissioner lays out $559 million package to stabilize prison system

The Georgia Department of Corrections presented a broad, multi‑year stabilization plan to the House Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee, seeking roughly $559.4 million in amended‑year spending to address staffing shortfalls, aging infrastructure and contraband that officials say fuels violence.

The department asked legislators to fund stepped-up recruitment and onboarding, new training for correctional officers, a program to install managed access and drone‑detection systems, large lock‑and‑control upgrades, emergency repairs and the purchase or placement of modular high‑security housing units.

The plan’s immediate items include a $906,000 line for planning and project management, a $5 million placeholder for development of a 10‑year staffing and facilities plan, $2.8 million in a recruitment/onboarding campaign, $900,000 to update correctional officer training, and multiple contract increases for health and substance‑abuse services. The department also proposed $35 million for drone detection and managed access systems and $93.2 million for construction of a 426‑bed modular correctional unit prototype.

The department presented the staffing goal as a phased improvement of facility officer ratios, targeting a long‑term correctional officer ratio near 1:11 in higher‑security settings; to start that shift the amended request would fund 330 additional CEO (correctional officer) positions in the current year and propose additional positions in fiscal 2026. A department summary said the state currently operates many facilities that cannot be upgraded easily and that some beds will need to be temporarily dried‑ocked while lock, control and hardening projects proceed.

On contraband, the department told the committee that cellphones and drones are “a deadly weapon inside state prisons” because they facilitate outside coordination of criminal activity. The agency seeks $35 million to expand drone detection and managed access technology to limit contraband inflow and to regionalize detection and analysis capability.

Commissioner (name not specified) framed the request as part of a “triage and stabilize” approach: first focused on making facilities and staff safer, then on long‑term facility planning. He said lock and control replacements, electronic health records and an overwatch/real‑time monitoring capability would reduce incidents and improve response times. He and staff told members that some state‑owned facilities are decades old and that repairs and modernization can take years without dedicated funding and project management.

Committee members pressed the department on pacing and procurement: several members asked why lock and control replacements and other projects could not be accelerated and whether modular units could be quicker and cheaper than retrofits. The department said supply chains and vendor manufacturing schedules create lead times (it cited 60–90 days for specialized detention hardware orders) and proposed adding regional project managers, tiger teams of skilled tradespeople and additional maintenance personnel to speed work.

The department offered cost‑saving context for modular units, saying a 504‑bed modular approach (high‑security modules) could reduce long‑term capital cost versus certain new brick‑and‑mortar facilities.

Ending: The committee did not vote on the requests during this hearing. Members and staff signaled urgency about locking control upgrades and contraband mitigation and said they would consider the department’s package while the legislature finalizes the amended‑year and fiscal‑2026 budget recommendations.