MONTGOMERY — The warden of a maximum security prison, where an officer was fatally stabbed by an inmate, told a Senate committee her officers go to work every day in dangerous, understaffed and overcrowded conditions.

“We’re double-stacked. We are overcrowded. On top of that we have one correctional officer in a dorm with 192 men,” Holman Warden Cynthia Stewart told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “We need space. I need staff. We’re very, very short. We’re so short, you couldn’t imagine walking down those halls on a daily basis.”

Prison conditions took center stage at a Senate Judiciary Committee public hearing on Gov. Robert Bentley’s proposed $800 million bond issue to build three new large mega-prisons for men, one new prison for women, and close most existing facilities.

The plan, which Bentley unsuccessfully proposed in 2016, faces an uncertain future in the Alabama Legislature, where some lawmakers have questioned the affordability of the project.

Committee Chairman Cam Ward, who is sponsoring the legislation, said it is clear that something has to be done about state prisons.

The committee delayed a vote to continue negotiations on the bill. Ward has said a scaled-down version will likely come to the committee next week for a vote.

“Smaller version. It will be smaller than it is now. Don’t know how much, but you are still coming with something substantial,” Ward said.

Ward said senators also want to add “transparency requirements” to the high-dollar construction project.

The public hearing put divisions over the bill on display: Broad agreement that there are crowding and safety concerns in state prisons, but disagreement that the bill is the solution.

Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told committee members in a public hearing that prison employees face dangerous conditions every day.

“At some point we are going to reach a tipping point and something catastrophic is going to happen in our system,” Dunn said.

Ebony Howard of the Southern Poverty Law Center said without other changes on sentencing reform and treatment, the state will not solve overcrowding.

“If we don’t explore those options and instead build these facilities, we are going to be back here in years to come we are going to be back here talking about this same issue, but with mega-prisons that are overcrowded,” Howard said.