JBC Reverses Course, Approves DOC Request to Fund 788 New Prison Beds

Committee overrides warnings from CCJRC and Colorado WINS and advances prison expansion despite parole failures and staffing shortages.

DENVER, CO — Today, legislators on Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee (JBC) reversed their earlier 4–2 vote, and approved the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) FY 2025–26 supplemental budget request in full, including funding to open 788 new prison beds. The decision overturns the committee’s prior action to deny funding for new beds and to withhold 50% of requested jail backlog and medical cost funding while pressing DOC to address staffing shortages, parole bottlenecks, and population management failures.

With today’s 5–1 vote (with Senator Amabile voting no), the JBC removed that leverage, approving prison expansion without requiring meaningful changes to how DOC manages prison growth or safely operates its existing facilities.

“This system is at a breaking point,” said Christie Donner, Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. “DOC does not have the staff or the rehabilitative programming to safely operate the prisons it already runs. Rather than getting on track with staff retention, parole planning, and reentry capacity, the solution once again is to keep adding beds. That is irresponsible — to DOC staff, to incarcerated people, and to taxpayers.”

The decision comes despite unprecedented opposition from Colorado WINS, the union representing more than 5,000 state correctional system workers, who warned lawmakers that expanding prison capacity during a staffing crisis would worsen unsafe conditions, increase forced overtime, and accelerate burnout and turnover.

“Colorado WINS has never opposed a DOC request for additional prison beds but we did this time because DOC’s staffing crisis is putting our members, the incarcerated population, and the public at risk,” said Hilary Glasgow, Executive Director of Colorado WINS.

“We understand that the Joint Budget Committee wanted to act in the short term, but now we must turn our attention to the bigger, long-term crisis plaguing DOC, and that means making sure existing funding is being spent where it should be, and more funding is allocated to fix staffing.”

“Unfortunately, the JBC missed an opportunity today to begin solving the real crisis in corrections,” said Kyle Giddings, Deputy Director of CCJRC. “This was a chance to require DOC to come back with a real plan. If underperformance is rewarded, it will continue.”

“The JBC justified this decision by claiming the state must fund more prison beds now or pay more later for jail beds,” said Donner. “That is a false binary. More than 4,600 people in Colorado prisons are past their parole eligibility date. At the same time, more than 600 staffed and funded community corrections beds sit empty, while hundreds of people have already been approved for release by the parole board but are ‘tabled’—unable to leave prison because they do not have a place to live, especially if they are elderly or very ill. These are not theoretical alternatives.”

CCJRC emphasized that lawmakers still have tools to act this session. Earlier this week, SB26-036 was introduced in the Senate to strengthen Colorado’s Prison Population Management Measures and ensure the law works as intended. The bill is sponsored by Senators Julie Gonzales and Mike Weissman, and would improve transparency, accountability, and impact of population management requirements already in statute.

On January 22nd, Colorado WINS union stewards Dana Mueller and Abraham Medina testified before the Joint Judiciary Committee on DOC’s staffing crisis. Listen to what DOC and the union stewards said (starting at 4:09) here.