AUSTIN – Lawmakers have once again ignored calls for Texas to move quickly to install air conditioning in all prisons.
In the final budget package that clears roadblocks as the session ends, the Senate rejected a House request to use more than half a million of the state’s surplus to speed up the installation of modern HVAC systems in prisons
A Democrat and a prisoner advocate reacted angrily to the news that the Department of Criminal Justice did not receive funds earmarked for air conditioning.
“We had a chance to get it right,” said Rep. Carl Sherman, D-DeSoto, who fought unsuccessfully to improve air conditioning at the jail in recent sessions.
Political points
“The sad truth is, it doesn’t matter how much the surplus is,” Sherman said.
“It doesn’t matter if we were to have billions of dollars donated by a philanthropist. There is no desire by the people in power beyond the Texas House to provide the same conditions that we provide to our animal shelters that.. . they have air conditioning.”
Spokesmen for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, the Senate’s chief budget writer, did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.
Texas is one of 13 states that does not require air conditioning in its state prisons and jails.
Seven out of 10 state penitentiaries do not have universal air conditioning in all inmate housing areas. Last year, two dozen staff and 11 inmates became sick from the heat, and the agency responded to 30 cases from units that experienced heat waves that lasted more than three days, according to a department spokesman.
Indoor temperatures in at least 15 state prisons and jails exceeded 100 degrees last summer, according to data obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
On Saturday, spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez said the department is “very grateful” that budget writers approved “a historic infusion of funding for major repair and improvement projects.”
Related: New data shows Texas prisons topping 100 degrees as lawmakers debate air conditioning in state penitentiaries
Unlike the budget lawmakers passed in 2021, budget for the next cycle includes money specifically earmarked for major repairs to facilities that house offenders. The department will now receive nearly $278 million in deferred maintenance and improvements.
Some of the money could pay to “add additional air-conditioned beds within the system,” Hernandez said. She didn’t elaborate.
The money will also pay for repairs and upgrades to roofs, fences, lighting systems, fire alarms and wastewater systems, he said.
The department has proposed a multi-cycle air conditioning installation, and the $544.2 million from the House would have been enough to install it by 2027 in transfer facilities, units with populations with needs specials and 30 more installations, especially those 30 and 40 years old.
A leading prisoner advocate called the Senate decision “disgusting” and short-sighted.
“It’s just blatant cruelty and a lack of compassion,” said Amite Dominick of Fulton, president of Texas Prison Air Conditioning Advocates.
Dominick said lawmakers are ignoring the health of not only inmates, but prison staff.
Lawsuits will continue, eating up millions that would be better spent on air conditioning, he said.
As of early April, the state was fighting 20 lawsuits related to extreme heat in prisons, department spokesman Robert Hurst confirmed to The News.
In 2017, a state judge ordered the state to install air conditioning in the Wallace Pack Unit, which houses elderly and sick inmates. Its installation cost about 4 million dollars. Fighting the lawsuit cost $7 million.
Dominick said the large industrial fans the department has deployed are expensive but ineffective. The fans are so loud that they impair correctional officers’ hearing and ability to respond to incidents, he said.
Related: Bill to require air conditioning in Texas prisons passes House
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