Yesterday, County Judge Aurelio Guerra released the details of the March sale of the former Willacy County Correctional Facility after the Valley Morning Star filed a request under the Texas Open Records Act.
RAYMONDVILLE — The secret is out.
Willacy County sold the former Willacy County Correctional Center for $2.025 million to Management & Training Corp., or MTC, as part of an agreement which released it of its $68 million debt to the prison’s bond holders.
Yesterday, County Judge Aurelio Guerra released the details of the March sale after the Valley Morning Star filed a request under the Texas Open Records Act.
As part of the sale, the agreement also will pay the county $3 a day for every inmate held in the facility.
Under the agreement, MTC apparently paid the bond holders about $68 million after they demanded payment.
“The county cleaned its hands,” Willacy County Chief Appraiser Agustin Lopez said yesterday. “It doesn’t have a debt. It doesn’t owe the bond holders.”
Meanwhile, MTC has declined to disclose information regarding its purchase of the 53-acre property along Interstate I-69.
Recently, the appraisal district appraised the property at $29 million.
At its current appraised value, the property is projected to increase the city of Raymondville’s total appraised property value from $166 million to $184 million, pumping $143,000 into city coffers, City Manager Eleazar Garcia said.
Now, Lopez is planning to re-appraise the property early next year.
MTC is making improvements expected to increase the property’s taxable value, he said.
“They’ve been doing a lot,” Lopez said.
MTC is repairing and making improvements to the facility’s 1,000-bed concrete housing unit, spokesman Issa Arnita stated yesterday.
Earlier this year, MTC removed 10 Kevlar-covered domes damaged in the February 2015 riot that led to the 3,000-bed prison’s closure.
Arnita said MTC continues working to secure a contract to hold inmates in the facility.
The closure of the prison, which paid the county for every inmate it held, led to 400 employee layoffs, slashing a third of the county’s $8.1 million general fund budget and plunging the area into financial crisis.
How we got here
MTC, a national prison operator based in Centerville, Utah, was one of the companies involved in the original deal that led to the facility’s development as a detention center developed to hold undocumented immigrants in 2006.
The county bought the facility largely made up of tent-line domes for $60 million, refinancing the detention center to turn it into a minimum-security prison in 2011.
MTC currently operates a 500-bed Willacy County-owned prison holding inmates for the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
In 2003, MTC was one of the companies behind the development of the $14 million deal that led to the county’s purchase.
The Willacy County Processing Center opened as Texas’ largest detention center for undocumented immigrants in August 2006. In 2011, the facility was converted into the Willacy County Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison holding inmates for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
July 2006
County sells $60 million in bonds
August 2006
Facility opens as detention center for undocumented immigrants
June 2011
County refinances facility to convert it into minimum-security prison
February 2015
Riot destroys much of the prison
March 2015
Federal Bureau of Prisons terminates contract
March 2017
County sells prison to MTC
