State Legislators to Debate Bill that Would Change Prison Contract Negotiations

The House of Representatives is now in control of a bill designed to allow the town and state to re-enter negotiations on existing prison contracts and if passed, it could end a lawsuit filed by the town to recover losses from excess sewer discharge from Cheshire Correctional.

The bill passed through the legislature’s judiciary committee last week, according to officials, and could soon change the way the town is able to negotiate prison contracts. Cheshire is one of the last communities to have an existing contract in place that can’t be re-opened and it has led to issues over who should front the bill for excess sewer discharge coming from the Highland Avenue prison.

“We started with good faith negotiations seven years ago trying to amend the contract with the state,” said Cheshire Town Manager Michael Milone said.

No progress had been made, due to technicalities in state law and the current contract, leading the town to file a lawsuit earlier this year to recover lost funds.

According to town officials, a contract agreement reached over 20 years ago when the prison first expanded called for the discharge not to exceed 350,000 gallons per day, but the prison’s discharge has exceeded that for close to a decade now.

Milone said the agreement the town has with the state does not include any provision that the state will kick in anything toward upgrades to the waste water treatment plant – something offered to other towns housing prison facilities.

"We are asking them to extend that same provision to our agreement," Milone said last week. "We are doing a $31 million upgrade to our treatment plant and the prison represents 25 percent of the effluence treated there so the state should pay 25 percent of cost.”

Cheshire State Rep. Mary Fritz told the Cheshire Citizen earlier this week that she is hopeful the new legislation will serve to address the issue once and for all.

“Cheshire has been the only town with a correctional facility not allowed to amend its contract over correctional facilities and this bill will change that,” Fritz said in the Record-Journal interview. “Other communities like Suffield and Enfield which also have correctional facilities have been able to negotiate and amend their contracts with the state.”

Patch Editor Kathleen Ramunni contributed to this report.

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