Legislative fiscal analysts and Department of Corrections officials told the House Judiciary Committee that Montana faces growing offender populations and expanding jail holds that are straining capacity and budgets, and that filling the gap will require large one‑time construction spending or increased reliance on cheaper contracted beds.

Nick Van Brown of the Legislative Fiscal Division introduced the legislative fiscal office’s MARA (Modernization and Risk Analysis) tools while Walker Hopkins, a corrections analyst with the Legislative Fiscal Division, outlined 20‑year offender projections and bed‑need scenarios. Hopkins said the office is using an exponential‑smoothing time series model weighted toward recent years to reflect the post‑COVID population rebound. “The purpose of MARA is really this forward‑looking idea, looking ahead 20 years,” Hopkins said.

The projections matter because the Department of Corrections’ budget and staffing scale with the number of people in secure custody and the severity of their offenses, Hopkins said. He told lawmakers the data now available stop at Q1 of fiscal 2024 and that more recent increases are likely to raise the forecasts.

MARA outputs and current counts

Hopkins pointed committee members to the LFD tool that combines historical admissions, releases and facility‑by‑facility counts. As of the snapshot he used, the number of people being held in local jails while waiting for DOC placement—so‑called jail holds—had risen to roughly 450 statewide, driven by 328 male and 111 female jail‑hold cases. Hopkins said the female jail‑hold rise is concentrated because Montana has only one state women’s secure facility (the Montana Women’s Prison) operating near capacity for several fiscal years. He said females are about 10% of the overall offender population but account for about 25–30% of jail holds.

Hopkins highlighted out‑of‑state contracted capacity that the state has used. The Saguaro Correctional Center (Arizona) was initially used for 120 beds in 2023, rose to 240 beds in late 2023 and to 360 beds at the start of the 2025 session, Hopkins said. He noted reporting that CoreCivic and DOC had an agreement to move 240 inmates to Mississippi.

Cost and timing scenarios

Hopkins told the committee construction costs per prison bed vary widely; his survey of research shows a range of roughly $300,000 to $500,000 per bed when including infrastructure and supporting costs. Using a low‑end $300,000 per‑bed assumption, he said the state could face $600–$700 million in one‑time construction costs by 2035 to provide the capacity implied by the baseline projections.

House Bill 5, which includes a request for 512 additional beds at Montana State Prison (Deer Lodge), figures in the options lawmakers are considering. Hopkins said the HB5 price tag for 512 beds is $150 million — a per‑bed cost he called “on the very low end” and warned that construction cost escalation could increase that figure. He said construction inflation for prison capacity modeling has been assumed at about 6% annually.

Ongoing operations and alternatives

Scott Eichner, rehabilitation programs chief for DOC, described program and staffing tradeoffs tied to new beds. Eichner said the Deer Lodge additions under the current construction plan for three housing units are designed to be a staffing “wash,” but added that a proposal for two additional housing units would require new FTE and operational funds. Hopkins estimated ongoing operations and maintenance for the larger HB5 project at roughly $6–$7 million per year; House Bill 5 itself included about $1 million per year in maintenance for the facility in early staffing estimates, Hopkins said.

Contracted secure beds remain cheaper on a per‑day basis: Hopkins said contracted secure beds in private facilities were running roughly $90–$120 a day depending on site (Crossroads Correctional Center and Saguaro at about $92/day; Deer Lodge roughly $110–$120/day including medical costs in his estimate). Hopkins also noted a statutory formula sets the jail‑hold day rate paid to CoreCivic at the CoreCivic rate less 10% and characterized the current statutory jail‑hold day rate at about $280 per day.

Drivers of growth and data gaps

Hopkins said reported violent crime counts and certain categories of serious offenses have increased in recent years; reported violent counts rose about 62% since 2014 and the violent crime rate per 100,000 residents rose roughly 50% when adjusted for population. But he cautioned that reported crime is an imperfect proxy for future DOC admissions because not all reported offenses lead to convictions or prison sentences. He also told members that Senate Bill 11 (2023) created a mandate to build a cross‑system data warehouse to link law‑enforcement, corrections and public‑health datasets; that warehouse is not yet complete, so the MARA tool uses facility and conviction data available today while the warehouse is being built.

Female population and jail holds

Both Hopkins and lawmakers highlighted the faster projected growth in the female offender population: Hopkins’ baseline projection shows estimated female prison population growth of roughly 51–52% through 2044 if current trends continue, driven in recent years primarily by drug‑related offenses and a lack of in‑state female secure capacity. Lawmakers pressed for offense‑level breakdowns that Hopkins said he could seek; he agreed the Judicial Branch and DOC datasets and forthcoming SB11 data warehouse should make more granular offense‑level projections possible.

Programming, reentry and alternatives

Eichner emphasized that new housing should include program space. He said the current MSP plan doubles large programming space on the low side and triples small group programming space, and that facilities without adjacent, modern programming space hamper rehabilitation. Eichner described work to contract mobile or higher‑education partners (for example, Great Falls College welding trailers) to provide in‑facility training rather than the DOC maintaining all equipment and instructors directly.

What lawmakers asked for next

Committee members asked for follow‑up details Hopkins offered to deliver: offense‑level breakdowns for female offenders, updated data through later FY2024 quarters and a more thorough accounting of contracted‑bed daily rates and community corrections costs. Hopkins said some of his projections likely understate recent growth because his dataset stops at Q1 FY2024 and several significant capacity changes and jail‑hold increases occurred in later quarters.

Why it matters

Lawmakers must weigh one‑time capital costs, multi‑year staffing and O&M needs, the short‑term availability of contracted beds and limits on where women can be housed. The committee heard that the choices — build more in‑state capacity, expand contracted out‑of‑state placements, or invest in programs that reduce admissions and length of stay — carry different price tags, timelines and policy trade‑offs for public safety and corrections budgets.

Ending note

Presenters and DOC officials urged legislators to use MARA’s scenario tools when weighing policy changes, saying the interface allows staff to plug in hypothetical initiatives (for example, a program with national evidence reducing recidivism by a certain percentage) and see long‑term population and budget effects. Hopkins and Eichner said more complete cross‑system data from the SB11 data warehouse will improve projections and policy analysis once it is operating fully.