Judge orders TDCJ to complete prison air conditioning by 2029

A federal judge has ordered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to air condition every state prison by Dec. 31, 2029. That is two years earlier than the agency’s own target. The agency has said the work could cost $1.5 billion. 

The order covers a large gap. Of Texas’ 104 state prisons, only 38 are fully air conditioned and 53 are partially air conditioned, according to TDCJ. The remaining 13 have no air conditioning in inmate housing. As of Sept. 1, the agency had 53,676 air-conditioned beds, while nearly 90,000 inmates went without air conditioning this past summer, according to the ruling. 

In his 150-page ruling issued Sept. 22, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found that conditions in TDCJ’s prisons without air conditioning violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He ordered the agency to immediately develop and carry out a plan to cool every unit, and he warned that cost would not be accepted as a reason to miss the deadline. 

The deadline comes from TDCJ’s own director of engineering, Dale Cox. He testified at the trial last April that systemwide air conditioning could be finished in 36 to 51 months, calling that a “very doable timeframe.” According to the ruling, TDCJ must file status reports with the court every six months, starting March 22. 

TDCJ has said it will appeal and disagrees with the finding that it acted with “deliberate indifference.” An appeal could leave lawmakers in a bind. The Legislature convenes in January to write the 2028-29 budget, and TDCJ’s legislative appropriations request (LAR) was drafted before the ruling. If the appeal is still pending during the session, lawmakers will have to decide how much to appropriate without knowing whether the 2029 deadline will stand. 

TDCJ’s first status report, which must list the funding it will seek for each stage, is due in March, midway through the session. The Legislature’s next regular session after that will not begin until January 2029, the final year of the court’s deadline. 

Years of lawsuits and partial funding 

This is not the first court fight over heat in Texas prisons. In 2014, inmates at the Wallace Pack Unit near College Station sued TDCJ over extreme heat, and the case ended in a settlement to install permanent air conditioning at that one unit. The current case began in 2023, when inmate Bernie Tiede sued over a cell at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville that reached 112 degrees. In 2024, advocacy groups joined the case and expanded it to cover every inmate in an uncooled Texas prison. 

Bills requiring air conditioning in state prisons have failed in several legislative sessions. By contrast, state rules have required county jails to stay between 65 and 85 degrees since 1994. Instead, lawmakers have funded the work in pieces. TDCJ received $85 million in 2023 and $118 million the following session, together adding about 29,000 cool beds, plus more than $400 million in 2025 for air-conditioned expansion dorms and the purchase of an existing climate-controlled lockup. 

TDCJ has given lawmakers a series of plans for systemwide cooling. The most recent, a two-phase plan presented at trial, called for $774.3 million in 2028-29 and $730.7 million in 2030-31, with completion by the end of 2031. The agency’s current LAR asks for $298.02 million for HVAC in inmate housing, about 38 percent of what its own plan called for. The LAR also includes $591.8 million for climate-controlled expansion dorm additions. TDCJ is scheduled to present its LAR to the Legislative Budget Board on Sept. 28. 

Judge urges new approach to procurement 

Pitman’s ruling spends notable time, and criticism, on how TDCJ buys air conditioning work. He wrote that the plaintiffs introduced substantial evidence that the agency could move faster by using more streamlined project delivery methods and by bundling contracts, meaning contractors bid on several projects in one area or region together. 

In his findings of fact, Pitman noted that TDCJ has relied almost exclusively on design-bid-build, which one witness called “absolutely the slowest possible way to get a project delivered.” The findings also cite testimony that HTX Industries, a current TDCJ contractor, offered to bundle projects at the Hightower, Boyd and Stevenson units into one contract with a $1.5 million discount. The agency rejected the offer. According to the findings, TDCJ now admits its approach is “not working” and plans to begin bundling and possibly adopt one of the delivery methods the plaintiffs proposed. 

Pitman did not choose a method for the agency. He wrote that the court was making no definitive finding on which delivery method or contract structure would work best, and he declined to dictate TDCJ’s procurement and construction management methods. He did urge the agency to fully consider the alternatives the plaintiffs showed could speed up its progress. 

State law gives TDCJ several options. Chapter 2269 of the Texas Government Code allows competitive sealed proposals, construction manager-agent, construction manager-at-risk, design-build and job order contracting, in addition to traditional competitive bidding. Under construction manager-at-risk, the agency hires a designer and, separately, a construction manager who advises during design and then serves as general contractor.  

Design-build puts design and construction under a single contract. Job order contracting can be used only for buildings, which would cover prison housing units. Before using any method other than competitive bidding, the agency must decide which option gives the state the best value for the project. Bundling can be used with any of these methods. 

The order does require TDCJ to spell out its approach. Its first status report, due in March while the Legislature is in session, must describe the phases of design, procurement and construction, any plans to bundle projects and the funding it will seek for each stage. 

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