HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) — Hastings leaders have vowed to help find workers to staff a proposed behavioral health treatment center for prison inmates, if it were placed in the south-central Nebraska city.

The local leaders made their pitch at a legislative hearing held Wednesday in the Hastings City Council chambers.

Dave Rippe, executive director of the Hastings Economic Development Corporation, told the lawmakers that “staffing hurdles are not exclusive to Hastings, and should our state elect to go forward with this facility, these hurdles will need to be addressed regardless of location.”

The Legislature passed a bill in spring 2014 authorizing $199,000 to study placement of the center at the Hastings Regional Center, a former state psychiatric hospital.