TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – There’s new hope for employees at the Jefferson Correctional Institution.
The Florida House of Representatives unanimously approved a measure to keep the prison open.
House Appropriations Chair Denise Grimsley offered an amendment Wednesday to provide 10 million dollars to fund the Jefferson Co. prison.
The budget chief says she decided to keep the prison open after she and other members heard countless pleas from Jefferson County residents.
Corrections officers were in the gallery, as the amendment came up for a vote Wednesday.
JCI is one of 11 prisons and work camps slated to close to save the state millions of dollars.
Rep. Grimsley decided to save the Jefferson prison because it's the rural county's largest employer.
“I just believe this is the right thing to do,” Rep. Grimsley told ABC 27, “this is a small area of critical economic concern, and if we shut down the prison immediately, with no advanced notice it will devastate the community.”
The amendment adopted Wednesday also provides 50,000 dollars to conduct a study on the economic impact the closure of the prison would have on the community.
This is not the end of the battle however. The Florida Senate still closes the prison in their budget and Governor Rick Scott has final veto say over the budget.
“We sounded the alarm on Jefferson County, we told the story on how it could be so devastating and no one wanted to be on record, down in history as having destroyed a county," said Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda (D-Tallahassee).
