VILSACK REMOVES FORT MADISON WARDEN

Gov. Tom Vilsack Tuesday said he had reassigned the warden of the
Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison in the wake of last week's
escape of two inmates.

Ken Burger, warden at the prison since last year, was assigned to a
job at the Department of Corrections' central office in Des Moines.
Other unnamed high-level staff also were reassigned, Vilsack said.

In all, corrections officials disciplined or reassigned seven workers
at the maximum security prison, including one front-line guard who is
blamed for failing to count inmates before the escape of Joseph
Legendre, 27, and Martin Moon, 34, on Nov. 14.

"Essentially, what happened was a count was not made in the prison
industries section of the prison that would have identified
immediately that individuals were missing," Vilsack said during a
taping of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program, to air next
weekend. "This was not about staffing, this was about people doing their job."

The two inmates, who worked in prison industries, used a rope
fashioned from upholstery webbing and homemade grappling hook to
scale a 30-foot wall near an unoccupied guard tower. Both men were
recaptured late last week - one in Illinois and the other in Missouri.

Moon was serving a life sentence for murder in the 1990 shooting
death of his roommate during a drug deal. Legendre was convicted in
Nevada in the kidnapping and attempted murder of a Las Vegas cabbie.

Ken Burger was superintendent at the Mount Pleasant Correctional
Facility before becoming warden at Fort Madison in January 2004. He
was honored in June 2004 by the governor with a "Leader of the Year"
award, which recognizes achievement in a particular area such as
staff development or effective management.

Burger will be replaced by John Ault, warden of a medium security
prison in Anamosa, the governor said.

Vilsack also said he would ask the corrections Director Gary Maynard
and the board of corrections to discuss whether Vilsack should
propose replacing the Fort Madison prison, which was built in 1839,
with a new one.

"We're going to suggest that the Director of Corrections and the
Board of Corrections submit to me within 30 days a report as to
whether or not a prison that began operations in 1839 is currently
what it needs to be or whether we ought to consider a new facility in
Fort Madison," the governor said.

"Obviously if the recommendation is that a new prison could be more
effective, more efficient, safer and more secure, then we might take
a look at how that could be financed," the governor said.

The current prison, which can hold up to 550 inmates, was extensively
renovated in 1982 when the large cell blocks were divided into
smaller, self-contained living units.

Vilsack estimated the cost of a new prison at $40 million with an
annual operating budget of $6 million.

"It's an awfully expensive proposal relative to dollars and cents,
but the idea is can we provide for a more secure environment, could a
new prison be operated less expensively," Vilsack said.

He said the state could save as much as $5 million a year by running
a more efficient and modern prison using new technology.

"You might actually be able to pay for the new facility by the
savings that would occur," he said.

- -- This report includes information from the Associated Press.