YAKIMA, Wash. — The Washington Department of Corrections will delay until February opening a 2,000-bed prison expansion at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in the central Washington farm town of Connell.

The expanded prison was to have been fully operational by the end of the year, but Department officials say that date has now been pushed back to late next summer.

The delayed opening is just one of several steps Corrections officials have taken in the past month to try to address a $30 million budget shortfall in the 2008 fiscal year, which ended June 30.