Steve Peoples reports today:
The state will spend more than $60 million on a new Training School that will open in the spring. Taxpayers will be paying off the related debt for the next 18 years.
But there are indications that the facility may be overcrowded the day it opens.
In 2003, I reported on the debate over the future of the new Training School. While some of the site details changed, then-Senate President William Irons, while not necessarily a perfect messenger, nailed a big piece of the outcome:
Irons notes that there have been times in the past when state projects have been moved forward just to get them done and taxpayers have been left on the hook to deal with the problems. Now, two years after the legislature allocated $60 million for a new training school, "the final [site] decision comes out of nowhere." If things aren’t done correctly, Irons says, the state "could be back in the same mess we’re in now."