The Corrections Association says it's groundhog day for around 370 prison officers at Mt Eden who's future job prospects are unknown.

Serco announced yesterday it will pay $8 million to the Corrections Department to cover costs the department incurred when it resumed control of the prison last July.

The multi-national also made a public apology yesterday for not meeting its contractual obligations.

President Alan Whitley said the fact Serco didn't provide adequate staffing shows they either didn't know, or didn't care about the correct way to run the prison.

"A remand prison is a difficult prison to run, but I think it's been proven by the fact that Corrections have gone in there and successfully run their prison for the last 12 months [...] that it can be done if you know what you're doing".

Mr Whitley said the handing over of Mt Eden back to Corrections is nothing new to some officers and it would be nice if the Government stopped repeating old mistakes.

"This prison has been run by GEO earlier in 2005 and they left and it to be cleaned up by Corrections. Corrections are in there now and are moving out. For it to go to a private provider for a third time would be a fatal mistake".

Mr Whitley said it's not the first time officers have been caught in the lurch between private and public management.

"They'll have concerns alright, they'll be wondering what's going on. There are some provisions in their collective agreement about things that have to happen but it's a bit early for us to work through that yet.

"Some of them have been through this before when ACRP ran that prison back in 2005, so yeah they'll be nervous".