The State correctional facility has begun moving inmates to a previously vacant outdoor facility in its Tucker Unit as part of a plan to add beds at several locations across the state to reduce the overflow of state prisoners held in county jails.

On Saturday, the department began transferring inmates to the Tucker Work Release Center and will primarily house 124 inmates assigned to a work release program and other minimum security inmates, a department news release said.

The Tucker Unit, which already houses nearly 1,000 inmates, is located near Pine Bluff.

The move comes after the department was able to hire sufficient staff to work at the facility thanks to incentives, including financial ones. Chair Benny Magness he said by telephone on Wednesday.

The department said expansions of the White River Correctional Center in Batesville by 170 beds, the Southeast Community Center Correctional Center in Texarkana by 70 beds and the McPherson Unit in Newport by 244 beds are nearing completion.

Magness, Minister of Corrections Lindsay Wallace and representatives of Governor Sarah Sanders The office is also in the early stages of a plan to build a new 3,000-bed facility, the press release said.

There are currently 1,995 male state prisoners housed in county jails, a department spokeswoman said. Shari Gray.

Some of the additional beds included in Tuesday’s press release were part of a controversial plan by the former Corrections Minister Joe Profiri in November. The Prison Board voted to add some extra beds, but balked at other aspects of Profiri’s plan.

Profiri had requested that 124 beds be added at the Tucker Work Release Facility and 244 beds at a building at the McPherson Unit in Newport. Magness said today that there were not enough staff at the time to add the beds at Tucker and that the McPherson Unit was a warehouse that needed to be renovated to add adequate restrooms and showers.

The dispute between Profiri and the board led to Sanders denouncing the board in a November press conference, suspending and later firing Profiri, and ultimately appointing Wallace as his successor. Sanders hired Profiri as a consultant in her office earlier this year. The state transparency website lists him as the director of public affairs in her office with a salary of $183,700.

Board member Lee Watson In January, he wrote an open letter to Sanders highlighting safety and staffing issues, saying the board is caught in a difficult position between the need to operate at a safe level and budget constraints imposed by the executive and legislative branches.

The department believes it has sufficient staff to provide the additional beds.

“The department has expanded recruitment by inviting several regional academics, which has enhanced our outreach to potential staff,” Gray said today via email. “While we are still working to increase our staffing levels, we are confident that we have or will have enough staff to free up these beds when they come online.”