CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada State Prison, part of it dating to the 1860s, may close as a result of the state's current budget crisis - a move that would save $19 million a year in operating costs.

State prisons chief Howard Skolnik said Wednesday that under a"what if" scenario prepared for Gov. Jim Gibbons, budget cuts of up to 4 percent would result in the old prison on the east side of Carson City shutting down by next January.

Skolnik said that if deeper cuts are mandated during state lawmakers' special session, opening Monday in efforts to deal with a $1 billion-plus shortfall, the medium-security prison would shut down even sooner.

"The closure of NSP is on the block as a consideration depending on the final numbers," Skolnik said. "We can't meet the (4 percent) reduction we are being requested to make without closure of a significant facility, and right now, based on the numbers, NSP fills the bill."

The prison houses about 1,000 inmates and has a staff of about 200 guards. It also houses the state's execution chamber.

While union representatives of prison staffers said the shutdown comments were scare tactics to get the employees to stop fighting
for pay raises that could be erased during the special session, Skolnik said that's not the case.

The shutdown plan follows moneysaving decisions to close a state
prison at Jean in southern Nevada and to close a women's prison facility at Silver Springs in northern Nevada. Both of those facilities are scheduled to shut down July 1. The state is hoping to lease out the Jean facility to generate revenue.

Skolnik said he is advising NSP employees of the possible need to close their prison and will work to ensure that they have transfer opportunities to other prisons.

The director also said that because of a high parole rate and expansion of a prison in southern Nevada he's "reasonably comfortable" that the inmate population at NSP could be absorbed at other prisons.

A newly approved prison near Las Vegas should be completed in about two years and will include an execution area. Even if NSP is
closed, its execution chamber could still be used if a death row inmate gets a lethal injection prior to completion of the new prison, Skolnik said.

Dennis Mallory of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees' Nevada Local 4041 said a prison closure would
be "a pretty extreme approach - and frankly I think it's a scare tactic."

"This is Karl Rove-type politics to scare state employees and the union to stop fighting for our 4 percent cost-of-living increases," Mallory said. "It's inappropriate. That's their motive."

"I'm wondering where these inmates are going to go," Mallory added. "The last I heard the prisons were busting out at the seams
and we had no place to put them."

"More importantly, the prisons are understaffed. How is it going to be expected of our members to control these folks when these prisons are overpopulated? Some prisons aren't safe right now."

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)