PENDLETON – In spite of buildings nearly 100 years old, the second-oldest facility among the state 14 prisons isn’t going away anytime soon.

Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution is on the site of the old state mental hospital, with most of the buildings originally constructed in 1912-13. The 62nd Legislative Assembly authored EOCI in 1983, making it the state’s first medium-security adult male correctional facility established outside Marion County.

The only prison facility in Oregon older than EOCI is the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. It’s been there since 1866, but was started in Portland in 1851. (OSP is the state’s only maximum-security prison.)

EOCI now houses 1,613 inmates. The institution has 17 medium-security housing units and three minimum-security units that house 120-140 on a temporary basis. Those inmates all are part of the prison’s general population.

To take care of the many inmates and the facility itself, EOCI employs the equivalent of 424 full-time employees. Those employees generate a payroll of about $1.9 million a month in family wage jobs. Further, about 50 people contract different services with EOCI and another 150-160 volunteer.

But this September, the new 1,240-bed men’s medium-security prison in Madras will start taking inmates. And the Department of Corrections has plans to build a similar facility in 2010 in Junction City.

Further, Gov. Ted Kulongoski has said it’s time to close down Eastern Oregon Training Center. It’s just across the street from EOCI. But he doesn’t see a similar future for EOCI.

That’s in part because of Measure 11, the mandatory minimum sentences law voters approved in 1994. It helps drive increases in inmate populations. And prisons are being built to meet those increases.

“There are prison population forecasts that the state has to meet,” Kulongoski said.

For example, he said the Junction City facility was originally scheduled for construction this year, but a slow down in the prison population projection moved the date back.

Still, Kulongoski said the DOC would make any decision regarding the effectiveness of continuing to operate EOCI versus building a new prison. But putting EOCI on the chopping block wasn’t an issue, he said.

While maintaining facilities as old as some of EOCI’s might seem like a losing battle, EOCI Public Information Officer Doug Harder said the key is to how they do things here.

“If state government takes a look at EOCI, they’ll see that from our inception … we built a culture of efficiency,” he said. “We take a certain pride to do more with less, and that is in our operations.”

For example, an inmate at EOCI eats for just $2.09 per day. Harder said information from the food service shows EOCI has the lowest cost in the state compared to other facilities of similar size.

EOCI also has the ability to switch between using natural gas and diesel fuel for heat. That’s why the non-security staff in the physical plant tracks and compares prices of the two heat sources. And they use which is more affordable.

“One year we saved half-a-million dollars with that strategy,” Harder said.

Workers also track and reduce water usage in EOCI’s laundry operations. Harder said a couple of years ago that led EOCI to cut its water use by about a third, or 125,000 gallons per month.

EOCI’s garment factory employs about 100 inmates in what Harder called “a cutting-edge” prison labor program. It’s home to Prison Blues, an internationally-recognized line of blue denim clothing. And the prison’s commercial laundry cleans clothing and other items for EOCI and Snake River Correctional Institution, in addition to Pendleton High School, the city’s fire department, the Pendleton Convention Center and Krusteaz Flour Mill.

Inmates can work in other jobs as well inside the facility, but Harder made it clear EOCI still respects the agreement it has with the city not to allow outside inmate work crews.

“We’re not structured for that and there are no plans to change that,” he said.

Harder also explained EOCI is still one of four prisons in the state classified as education facilities. That has to do with partnerships with Blue Mountain Community College, the Arts Council and the Oregon Council for the Humanities.

Those partnerships also help integrate EOCI into the community. And some of the programs they provide help to educate inmates and encourage them to achieve educational goals.

Harder said while quantifying how much education mitigates recidivism is a work in progress, many people in corrections have the sense it does.

“Because of what we hear from inmates and the like, there is a benefit,” he said.

Further, many of these programs don’t cost taxpayers. The New Directions Education project, Harder said, is totally funded by private contributions and grant moneys. It provides college-level courses to qualified inmates.

EOCI also provides inmates the chance to learn a trade or craft. The prison’s plumbing and electrical work programs have produced journeyman level jobs, and some of those men have left the institution and made lives for themselves in Eastern Oregon communities.

“That gives them confidence to compete for jobs,” Harder said.

The overall story at EOCI isn’t just about an institution trying to save money, it’s about a state operation trying to be a responsible member of the community.

And that, Harder said, is why there’s a lot of support for EOCI.