Iowa lawmakers impatient for answers to prison delay, rising cost

DES MOINES - Department of Administrative Services Director Janet Phipps was unable to provide many answers to lawmakers' questions about the long-delayed opening of the state's Fort Madison maximum security prison Thursday.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, thanked Phipps for 'being forthright with information she knew of” after the hourlong session, but said that mostly he learned he has more unanswered questions about the 'colossal mistakes that were made.”

The committee could have learned more if Phipps had been prepared, according to Rep. Vicki Lensing, D-Iowa City.

'I hope we're not being stonewalled,” she said, adding that legislators are growing impatient for answers.

'I respect that she's new to the job, but she's been on enough months to realize the Legislature is interested in why this is an ‘oops' and wants to get the prison open and wants to understand why we're having so much trouble getting it open,” Lensing said.

'I think we just want to connect the dots, but we're getting very little information to help us do that,” she said.

Kaufmann hopes Phipps' predecessor, Ray Walton, who was DAS director when the project started under the Gov. Chet Culver administration, can provide some insight.

'We're talking about two different time frames and a lot of the people weren't part of both,” he said.

Kaufmann also pledged 'to be open and provide protection” if 'whistleblowers” come forward.

'I pledge to be open and provide protection,” he said.

Lawmakers are frustrated that the 800-bed prison is likely to sit empty for months until a smoke evacuation system is designed, bid and installed, and prison staff are retrained to operate the state-of-the-art facility that was supposed to open in December 2014.

During Thursday's session, Oversight Committee members repeatedly asked Phipps, who was appointed in May 2014, the same basic set of questions - who is responsible for the delays, when will the prison open and what will it cost.

'I think we were taking turns,” Lensing said, 'thinking that if we asked it in a different way we'll get more information. Clearly we did not.”

Phipps 'inherited a pretty good mess,” Rep. Peter Cownie, R-West Des Moines, told her, but the committee wants to know what went wrong and what can be learned to prevent it from happening again.

Phipps said that in addition to her agency's review of the project, the Attorney General's Office is involved. For example, it is discussing approximately $20 million in requests for 'equitable adjustments” submitted by contractors. That could push the cost to about $186 million for what started as a $132 million project.

The cost 'just keeps snowballing and we're not quite sure why,” Lensing said. 'Not to point fingers … but someone was calling the shots, so tell us who. Changes were made. Tell us who authorized that.”