Loss of Federal Contract to Cost 185 Jobs at Prison

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The loss of a federal contract to house inmates at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center will result in 185 employees there losing their jobs, the prison’s operator advised Mayor John McNally.

In the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice sent to the mayor, Andrea Cooper, senior director human resource compliance with Corrections Corporation of America Inc., advised that the layoffs would be effective midnight May 30. The prison, which opened in 1997, has more than 400 employees total.

“The planned reduction is expected to be permanent,” she wrote in the letter, dated March 24. There are no bumping rights for the affected employees, she added

CCA houses some 1,400 inmates for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in the 2,016-bed prison in Youngstown, CCA reported last year. It also holds some 580 detainees from the U.S. Marshals Service there.

Nashville-based CCA learned in late 2014 that it had lost the federal contract to Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in Philipsburg, Pa., and Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton, Okla. Both prisons are operated by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.

In 2013, CCA launched a campaign to enlist community support intended to influence the bureau to keep the contract here and public officials including U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan and Bill Johnson and U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman lobbied on behalf of NOCC.

A letter the federal lawmakers sent in August 2013 pointed out that the prison has a payroll of $21.7 million and pays nearly $4.3 million annually in property taxes, utilities and local goods and services. The prison has contributed more than $180 million to the Valley economy since 2005.

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