VIDALIA — Through the Adams County Correctional Facility, Corrections Corporation of America has spent approximately $32 million in the area, warden Vance Laughlin said Tuesday.

Laughlin was the featured guest speaker at the Vidalia Chamber of Commerce’s monthly meeting.

“We do a lot of business locally, and that is kind of an anomaly in our company,” he said.

Prior to coming to Adams County, CCA did some local business, but some policies required that the company open projects up to national bidding, Laughlin said.

“The federal government said you need to make a stronger commitment to local business, and I said, ‘Let me do it,’” Laughlin said. “Release me from the national bidder requirements and I will see what I can do.”

Approximately 42 percent of the business done at CCA has been local, and whenever a new project comes up — for example, an addition that is currently being built on a warehouse — Laughlin said he tries to get a local business on board, and he said whenever the prison needs chemicals or other supplies, he looks to local sellers.

“We are locked in with commitments with local businesses,” he said. “If we have a need, we are going to shop both sides of the river, because it doesn’t matter to me where you are if you can get that small business dollar.”

Property taxes for the facility will generate $2.1 million a year, and CCA’s utility bills are projected to total $1.8 million, Laughlin said.

The company also looks to hire locally as much as it can, and to date it has had 6,100 applicants for the 409 jobs available.

Some of those positions haven’t been filled because the prison doesn’t have a full population yet, but Laughlin also said many of the applicants were turned down because of the quality of their application or an inability to clear a federal background check, part of which includes their credit history.

“It’s not that you have to have good credit, it’s that you can’t have unresolved debt,” he said. “Anyone with charge-offs in their credit history isn’t going to clear that check.”

The prison is built to accommodate as many as 2,567 prisoners, and currently houses 800.

The prison population is composed of low-security criminal aliens, and currently represents 27 countries, though most are from Latin America, Laughlin said.

Having the prison is a win-win for the area because of the money it generates for the region, he said.

“The inmates come from somewhere else, and when they leave they go somewhere else, we are not releasing them into the community,” he said.

“It’s a recession proof job that creates no pollution.”

The prison officially opened in July.