HILO, Hawai'i — The 63-year history of the Big Island's only prison quietly ended last Thursday when the last 30 Kulani Correctional Facility inmates were transferred to O'ahu facilities.

"They're all settled in now," said Tommy Johnson, deputy director of the state Department of Public Safety's Corrections Division.

One of the men went to O'ahu Community Correctional Center, three others to Waiawa Correctional Facility and the remaining 26 to the Federal Detention Facility in Honolulu, he said.

None of Kulani's 123 former inmates are being sent to Mainland prisons, he said.

"There's room (in Hawai'i) because we're using the FDC," he said, referring to the Federal Detention Facility near Honolulu International Airport.

The Lingle administration in July announced the planned closure of Kulani to save money and help close a budget deficit.

Both the Kulani employees and prisoners are unhappy with the decision to close the facility, said Ikaika Dombrigues, a building maintenance supervisor who has worked at Kulani for 20 years.

"Their lives have just been crumbled," he said of employees who will continue reporting to work for the near future.

Eventually, all Kulani employees will be reassigned to the Hawai'i Community Correctional Center, also known as the Hilo jail, although some employees have asked to be allowed to fill openings at prisons on other islands, Johnson said.

There are enough vacancies at Hawai'i's jails and prisons to absorb the displaced Kulani workers, Johnson said.

The state plans to allow the U.S. Department of Defense to begin using the 20-acre Kulani facility at the end of November, he said.

The goal is to turn the prison into a Hawai'i National Guard Youth Challenge Academy for teens ages 17 and 18 who are not going to graduate from high school, Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, the state's adjutant general, announced in July.

Closing Kulani will save an estimated $2.8 million a year, Public Safety Director Clayton Frank said in a July 24 press conference in Honolulu.