Brown County lawmakers holding public hearing on a bill in Madison proposing to close the maximum security prison in Allouez.
The Green Bay Correctional Institution is about 120 years old and only built for 750 inmates but the prison holds over 1,000 inmates Tuesday.
Lawmakers say the bill requires many upgrades and is overcrowded. State Representative David Steffen is asking the state to consider his bill today saying he would like to build a new prison in Brown County or an adjacent county and allow Allouez Village leaders to decide what to do with the currently untaxed property.
"From a financial perspective it would probably mean somewhere between 700 thousand and a million dollars a year in tax revenue to us, which our annual tax revenue now is 6 to 7 million. So it's huge financially," said Jim Rafter, Allouez Village President.