Things are looking a little more uncertain about the closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Governor Tony Evers announced yesterday that Republican lawmakers on the State Building Commission voted to block every project from the 2025-27 state budget, deadlocking the commission with a 4-4 vote.
The corrections plan Evers proposed would close GBCI by 2029 and overhaul the Waupun Correctional Center to turn it into a “vocational village”, the first of its kind in the state.
A newly elected Republican from De Pere, Representative Benjamin Franklin, wrote a column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel saying that the Green Bay Prison, which is older than Alcatraz, needs to be replaced.
Franklin continued saying that the institution has served Wisconsin for more than 120 years, but it’s now unsafe, inefficient, and a looming cost burden for the community.
In 2019 it was estimated that the cost to build a new prison was up to $500 million while other states are spending upwards of over $1 billion for a new prison.
Franklin finished saying, “we should seize upon the state’s historic surplus and look to replace this facility.”
Evers calls the projects a “no-brainer” while also stating, “Republican lawmakers continue to kick the can down the road, which only makes these projects more expensive with each day of delay while our buildings and infrastructure continue to deteriorate. It makes no sense.”
