Funding restored for Rayburn, four others as Senate Finance Committee moves funds

Sen. Ben Nevers

On Wednesday, the 15-member Senate Finance Committee took steps they think will keep five state prisons, including Angie's Rayburn Correctional Center, open.

"I'm under the impression that the way that we handled it is going to not require any closure of any prisons," Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Covington) said following the early morning meeting.


The news was first reported on WWL-TV and radio.

Sen. Jack Donahue

Members of the finance committee voted to move money around and restore cuts to the Louisiana Department of Corrections. The full Senate is expected to take up the re-worked budget Friday, and then it will go back to the House.


“They shuffled some funding around, things the House didn’t consider,” Sen. Ben Nevers (D, Bogalusa) said. “Money is back in the appropriations bill to fund keeping Rayburn open.”


The House had cut $27.5 million, roughly 5 percent of the total budget of the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DOC), earlier in the legislative session. Those proposed cuts prompted DOC Secretary James M. LeBlanc to send letters to the wardens of the five prisons, outlining the state's "layoff timetable" and setting July 17 as the employee termination date. The memo, which was published on wpnewsblog on Friday, June 3, caused widespread panic in Washington Parish.


"It would seem hard that with a 5 percent cut, it would trigger the closing of all these prisons," said Donahue, "but as they gave testimony, you could start to understand what some of the problems were. I believed them, so we did our best to try to restore those funds."


If Rayburn was closed, more than 300 Washington Parish jobs would be eliminated.


Nevers, who has been very involved in the budget negotiations, met with Rayburn employees last week.


"I told them, give us time to work through this situation and I asked them to have confidence in their legislators and let us do our job over here. And they have," Nevers said. "Certainly they call, they're very concerned, but I feel much better today."


There are more than 300 employees at Rayburn — and the four other prisons have similar personnel counts.


The Governor's Office said Wednesday they were working through the details of the Senate plan, but said they believe if the House approves it, the five prisons can be kept open.


"I made a comment to you before, they would close Rayburn over my dead body and I stand by that. I'm not planning on dying, I'm going to be around and I plan for Rayburn to still be open," Nevers said.


The 2011 regular session of the Louisiana legislature ends Thursday, June 23.