The nine members who govern the Texas prison system will meet Aug. 28 in Bryan, where they vote on installing air conditioning in inmate housing at four units — Briscoe in Dilley, Garza West in Beeville, Lychner in Humble and Sanchez in El Paso.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice keeps a running list of its cooling projects, and all four of those units sit in the same column on it: in procurement, alongside six others. The pending work at these four covers about 5,900 beds. The agency says it received $85 million from the Legislature in 2023 and $118 million in 2025 for air conditioning, enough to add roughly 18,000 cooled beds and push the system total past 80,000. As of Aug. 1, it counted 38 units fully air conditioned and 52 partly.
The board votes against a legal backdrop it does not control. In March 2025 U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found the heat in Texas prisons “plainly unconstitutional” but declined to order immediate cooling, sending the case toward trial instead. That two-week trial ended in Austin on April 9. Slate reported on July 31 that he still had not ruled, and nothing found since then says otherwise. The board’s notice does not mention the case.
The rest of the agenda is money and housekeeping. Members take up the department’s 2027 operating budget and its funding request to the Legislature for 2028 and 2029, purchases and contracts over $1 million, and next year’s audit plan. Two board rules are up for final adoption — one on how local supervision departments handle people convicted of sex offenses, another on the program that pays for temporary housing when someone is paroled with nowhere to live. The notice does not say what either amendment changes. Also on the list: a water conservation system at the McConnell Unit in Beeville, a sewer easement at the Byrd Unit in Huntsville, and reports from the inspector general, the independent ombudsman and the federal prison-rape ombudsman. Public comment is taken in the morning session.
Watch whether the four cooling projects are approved as presented, and what the 2028-29 request asks the Legislature to spend on the beds still uncooled. The same nine people sit the day before as trustees of the state’s prison school district, setting its budget.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 8 a.m. CT Friday, August 28, 2026. The notice was filed August 19. This is the board’s 248th meeting.
- Where
- 4100 Lake Atlas Dr., Bryan. Regular session in the Celeste Ballroom; executive session in the Orion Boardroom.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Board of Criminal Justice — nine unpaid members appointed by the governor to staggered six-year terms. Eric Nichols, chairman. Bobby Lumpkin has been executive director since September 2025.
- Format
- In person, with a livestream. The board recesses to executive session for personnel, security and legal matters, then adjourns.
- Live video
- TDCJ on YouTube
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · TBCJ meeting page
Board members
- Eric Nichols — chairman; Butler Snow partner, former state deputy attorney general.
- Bill Welch — vice chairman; retired Air Force brigadier general and businessman.
- Sydney Zuiker — secretary; Safe Community Institute director, Crime Stoppers of Houston.
- Rodney Burrow, M.D. — Mount Pleasant physician and pharmacist, Titus Regional Medical Center.
- Tom Fordyce — chief of special projects, Mighty Oaks Foundation; former parole commissioner.
- Martin Garza — Mission; retired police chief and city manager, appointed February 2026.
- Faith Johnson — senior judge, 363rd District Court; former Dallas County district attorney.
- Sichan Siv — former United States ambassador to the United Nations; author.
- Nate Sprinkle — senior pastor, Calvary Baptist Church, Rosenberg.
Roster from the agency’s board members page, read August 20, 2026, and cross-checked against the governor’s February 2026 appointment of Martin Garza. The agency does not publish members’ hometowns except where a member’s own biography names one. Meeting contact: Jill Durst, (512) 463-5372.