PANAMA CITY— Layoffs could occur at two prisons in the area.
A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification went out from the Management & Training Corporation, a prison operator, stating that it lost its contract to operate two correctional facilities in northwest Florida.
The two prisons are the Bay Correctional Facility, 5400 Bay Line Drive in Panama City, and the GracevilleCorrectional Facility, 5168 Ezell Road in Graceville.
A dashboard maintained by the Florida Department of Commerce shows that 161 employees are affected in Bay County and 259 in Jackson County.
The WARN notice states that the employees’ last day of employment with the company will be on June 30. Many of the employees may be retained by the new operator, The GEO Group, according to the document.
Bay Correctional Facility employs 147 correctional staff and 14 medical staff. Graceville Correctional Facility employs 229 correctional staff and 30 medical staff.
The WARN indicates that the notice went out to Panama City Mayor Allan Branch and Graceville Mayor Walter Olds.
The Geo Group’s contract with the Florida Department of Corrections is effective on July 1, according to a release on Business Wire. At the time of publication, September 2025, the release said they expected the contract to have an initial term of three years with unlimited two-year renewal option periods.
The Bay and Graceville facilities were two of three whose operation was awarded to The Geo Group by the FDC. They expect $130 million in annualized revenues combined across the three facilities.
The Geo Group’s operations include 95 facilities encompassing approximately 75,000 beds, according to their website. They have made recent headlines for being one of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s largest private contractors, running facilities that blocked state inspectors as concerning reports arose from detainees.
This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Layoffs could occur at two prisons in Bay and Jackson counties
Reporting by Dylan Gentile, Panama City News Herald / The News Herald
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
