Four years after the ribbon was cut on Butler County’s new $44 million prison, the warden says it’s having growing pains and problems.

Toilets leak.

Faucets run.

And the prison already is strapped for classroom space — so much so that officials are preparing to buy a $13,000 room divider to create two classrooms out of the lone, existing room.

“It’s become a maintenance nightmare,” said Warden Rick Shaffer, who says so prevalent are the issues that he has asked the county to hire another maintenance worker.

But some county prison board members questioned the need for such a hire, which, according to Jack McMillin, county controller and prison board member, can mount to $800,000 during the next decade.

Shaffer said the maintenance issues at the prison, which opened in the summer of 2009, are multifaceted. First, he said, things age more quickly than in other buildings because, unlike a home or an office, the prison is open and running “24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”

Secondly, the prison initially opened with a two-person maintenance staff. Shaffer said that was appropriate then because everything was new and did not need attention.

But now there’s so much light bulb changing and fan replacing to be done that the staff is putting out fires only. They have no time for preventive maintenance.

And finally, Shaffer says the prison itself is part of the issue: the subcontractors that worked on segments of the project came in with winning bids by selecting low-cost materials.

“You get what you pay for,” Shaffer said. “Low quality stuff starts to break down after a while.”

As an example, Shaffer points to plastic joints in the plumbing.

John Campbell, director of county facilities and operations, refused to comment on the quality of the products used or the bidding process involved with the prison construction.

However, he did talk about the work his staff does in the building. He confirmed there has been an ongoing series of time consuming plumbing issues related to the valve system, which he described as sensitive to lime buildup and deterioration.

Because of this, plumbing fixtures will sometimes leak and sometimes allow continuous water flow.

When that happens, maintenance staff “replace, rework or rebuild” them to fix the problem. The valves seem to be going bad regularly.

There are more than 300 people in the prison — including 31 each in eight of the nine inmate housing pods, some in the medical area and processing areas.

“There’s just so many of them,” Campbell said. “We’re only replacing them as needed.”

Campbell also confirmed there also has been maintenance of the prison’s rooftop heating units.

“There’s just a lot of equipment down there (in the prison). It adds up,” he said. “I’ve been shifting other personnel down there to compensate the influx.”

Shaffer said the Westmoreland County Jail, which houses 565 inmates, has seven maintenance people.

The Butler County Prison, which has about 356 inmates, has two dedicated workers.

“This is too much for two men,” he said.

County Commissioner and prison board member William McCarrier said he’s sympathetic to the situation and would consider hiring an additional maintenance person.

“It’s a huge facility and there’s only two people down there,” he said.

But other members of the prison board, including McMillin and county commissioner James Eckstein, question the need for the hire as well as the criticism of the products used during the prison construction.

McMillin said such products are strictly mandated by both the state and federal government, and he was assured when the prison was being built that it would be a quality product.

“If there are any shoddy materials, the county has cause for action against the architect and the construction manager,” McMillin said.

Eckstein made similar statements: “I’d like to see documentation that the products used were inferior ... I don’t believe it.”

Shaffer said there’s probably no issue with the contractors. Although he described the materials as “the least expensive” of similar available products, he said they probably did not breach quality standards.

Both men noted the maintenance staff at the courthouse can be used at the prison as needed.

McMillin said he just doesn’t understand the issue with the classroom space. The warden is proposing buying a room divider using money from the prison’s commissary fund, which is raised by the sale of small food and toiletry items to inmates.

“It was my understanding the prison would have classroom availability,” McMillin said.

Shaffer said the partition was designed into the building as part of the initial plan. However, it was not bought to save up front costs.

“They planned for it, but did not put it in,” Shaffer said. “Right now, we have to turn down programs because we don’t have room. This would double our classroom space and potential programming.”