Gibbons, secretary of state spar over prison plan

Gov. Jim Gibbons and Secretary of State Ross Miller sparred Wednesday over the governor's push to close the aging Nevada State Prison, with both contending public safety is on their side.

In an opinion essay published Wednesday, Miller defended the state Prison Board's rejection this month to allow the transfer of inmates and staff from the 140-year-old prison in Carson City.

Miller said that closing the prison wouldn't compensate for staffing shortages caused by requiring correctional officers to take a furlough day each month and that correctional officers should be exempt from furloughs, as they were before July 1.

"The true issue is whether our state can sustain deeper cuts in our Department of Corrections by furloughing front-line corrections staff and, if we do, what impact that will have on the safety of our communities," Miller wrote. "The safety issues caused by furloughing corrections officers will not disappear when we close a prison."

Gibbons, responding in a statement, argued that moving staff and inmates to newer prisons would mean more officers at those facilities and save about $8 million a year.

He repeated his position that Department of Corrections Director Howard Skolnik has authority to move staff and inmates at his discretion and that Miller was trying to "curry favor" with labor groups.

Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats, outnumbered the Republican governor on the Prison Board when it voted July 13 to delay the fate of the medium-security prison, which houses 650 inmates and the state's death chamber.

State lawmakers twice rejected Gibbons' plan to shutter the penitentiary.