Official: No clear opening date for Fort Madison prison
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - There's no clear timeline for when the long-delayed Iowa State Penitentiary will open, the head of Iowa's corrections department said Wednesday.
John Baldwin told House lawmakers on a government oversight committee that officials are studying a potential solution to a faulty smoke control system that's held up the prison's opening.
The process of completing that fix will require a few months, and staff training at the new building in Fort Madison will take another few months.
"Our goal is to get (the inmates) moved in as soon as possible," Baldwin said.
The $165.5 million prison was scheduled to open last March to house inmates at the old Iowa State Penitentiary, located a mile away. That prison, which turns 176 years old in April, remains open.
Several lawmakers including Rep. Dawn Pettengill, a Mount Auburn Republican, asked Baldwin who should be held accountable for design plans that eventually led to problems. Baldwin, who retires as corrections director Thursday, said the department is still investigating to determine that.
"Right now we do not know," he said.
He said there were a lot of groups involved in the building's construction, and multiple approvals for different aspects of the work.
It's not clear if delays to the project will bring extra costs, Baldwin said.
An earlier problem involved an improper design in a geothermal heating and cooling system at the new prison. That has since been fixed.
The latest issue is the smoke control system, which failed to evacuate air from housing units during a test. That meant the prison wasn't up to state building code and could be hazardous during a fire.
Committee chair Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a Wilton Republican, said after the meeting that lawmakers will use information they gathered from Baldwin's responses to generate more questions and pose those to the Department of Administrative Services and others involved in the prison construction.
"I will expect and I will demand thorough and complete answers to any and all questions," he said.