AP via Tribune:

State says its $400,000 prison report is wrong
September 25, 2008 at 2:51 PM
The Illinois Department of Corrections spent more than $400,000 for an independent study of the prison system's needs but after sitting on the report for almost a year, it now says it doesn't agree with the findings.
The study concluded that Illinois will need space for more than 2,700 additional inmates by 2016. It also said that a 137-year-old central Illinois prison that's slated to close could be upgraded and kept open for less than it will cost to fix problems at newer facilities.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Department of Corrections say they want to close Pontiac Correctional Center to save about $4 million a year as the state struggles with a $2 billion budget deficit.
PSA Dewberry, a Peoria architectural and engineering firm, finished its $411,000 report on the prison system in September 2007. However, the Department of Corrections held it until Sept. 12 because the agency believed the report's projections on the need for additional space didn't factor in state programs intended to curb recidivism, department spokesman Derek Schnapp said.
The findings won't change the agency's plan to close the Pontiac facility early next year, Schnapp said.
The agency paid for the report, he said, because "we want another set of eyes."
Opponents of the plan to close the Pontiac prison say the study confirms their belief that closing the lockup isn't wise, given that Department of Corrections figures show the prison system now holds about 30 percent more inmates than its facilities are designed to handle.
"We need to put a moratorium on all these closings," said state Sen. Dan Rutherford, a Republican from Chenoa, just southwest of Pontiac.
The report says Illinois will need space for more than 54,000 inmates by 2016. It now has just over 51,000. The extra inmates could cost the state anywhere from $190 million to $700 million.
The study also considered the cost of other work needed at many of the state's prisons, among them Pontiac. The authors concluded renovations at Pontiac could be done for less than $6 million, which was cheaper than fixes required at other prisons.
Pontiac prison is in a town of about 12,000 people 40 miles northeast of Bloomington and is the second-largest local employer. If it closes, the region would lose about 570 jobs and the facility's roughly 1,650 inmates would be shifted around the state, with about half ending up at a largely unused prison in Thomson in northwestern Illinois.
Rutherford and other opponents of the plan to close Pontiac believe politics are behind the decision.
Blagojevich initially said he would close a prison unit in Joliet, but changed his mind after a lawmaker from that area didn't support a recall initiative aimed at the governor. Pontiac lawmakers supported the measure.
The legislature's Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability voted earlier this month to oppose Blagojevich's plan, calling it fiscally unwise and a potential financial calamity for the Pontiac area. But that vote is purely advisory.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents most of the prison's employees, Rutherford and others have sued to block the prison's closure.
-- Associated Press