Nevada State Prison will remain open for the next two years, after the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committee took final action today on a plan which adds $28.2 million to the Department of Corrections budget.
The pain was made a bit easier by new projections which predict Nevada will have 2,166 fewer total inmates in its prison system than the original budget was built on.
That made it possible to delay the opening of High Desert Prison Phase Five and defer construction of the proposed prison 8 " which would have required more than $200 million in bonds.
Closing NSP would have saved the department more than $18 million a year. It would also have eliminated more than 170 jobs in Carson City, which drew protests from the employees as well as city officials who are already looking at a double-digit unemployment rate in the capital.
Part of the cost to keep NSP open was offset with other changes to the budget, including more than $11 million saved by deferring the opening of the newest phase at High Desert.
Also rescued from the chopping block was the Tonopah Conservation Camp. The cost of maintaining that operation was offset by delaying the opening of an $400,000 expansion at Three Lakes Valley Conservation Camp in Indian Springs.
The budget approved Friday increases the governor's recommended total budget for prisons from $576.2 million to $604.4 million for the biennium.