LePage budget puts correctional facility on chopping block

Gov. Paul LePage’s state budget proposal includes a plan to cut funding for the Down East Correctional Facility in Bucks Harbor.

The Quoddy Tides reported that if LePage’s proposal makes it through the budget process and is part of the adopted budget, the facility could close by June, with the loss of 50 jobs.

The facility, located at the former Bucks Harbor Air Force Station in the town of Machiasport, was established by the Legislature in September 1984 and began receiving inmates in June 1985. The facility is a minimum-security institution with a prisoner count of 148. In 2011, a state task force looking for savings in the state budget tabled a proposal to close the facility.

According to its website, the Bucks Harbor facility provides educational, vocational, community restitution and treatment programs. Those would be lost.

Among the governor’s proposals is to release current prisoners and monitor them with ankle bracelets under the supervision of probation and parole officers.

"I do not support closing the prison and have fought against it ever since I've been here. I think it is bad for our area, bad for the workers at the prison, bad for area employers and, from the sounds of it, a recipe for disaster should they actually release 150 convicted felons onto the street with only ankle bracelets,” Rep. Will Tuell of East Machias told the paper. “Our whole delegation is fighting this and will continue to do so."

Sharon Mack, director of the Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce and a University of Maine/Machias public relations liaison, agreed. “I cannot adequately stress the negative impact to Washington County if DCF is closed, not only for the immediate loss of 50-plus jobs, but the wider ripple effect that will be felt at the cash registers in every business in Washington County,” she told the newspaper.