Arguments over size, cost stall new Jackson County jail 7 months after groundbreaking
Grasping shiny chrome shovels, County Executive Frank White, Sheriff Darryl Forté and eight other elected officials broke ground last Sept. 7 for Jackson County’s proposed new jail.
After years of planning and debate, the county was about to begin building what White said would be “a state-of-the-art detention facility that meets the safety and security needs of detainees, staff and our community for decades to come.”
But more than seven months later, the jail project is at a standstill and could be for months more while White and the county legislature hash out issues that some legislators say should have been decided before now.
How big of a jail can or should be constructed? How much will it cost? And how should taxpayers pay for it amid the county’s many other needs, including two courthouses in dire need of repair?
A faction of newly elected members who have a majority of votes on the legislature are incredulous that those crucial questions remain unanswered as a deadline looms next week to lock in rising construction costs before they soar further.
Chairman DaRon McGee leads the majority that has put the jail project on hold indefinitely until the financial issues are settled, even if it might cost taxpayers more money in the long run.
“They had this grand ribbon cutting,” McGee said, “and I’m thinking why the hell did they do all of that, hardhats and scooping dirt, and none of this s— was paid for. It was kind of like when (former President George W.) Bush flew in on an aircraft carrier and announced that the war was over, but the war wasn’t over.”
Since the groundbreaking, this legislature and the one before it have declined to act on the White administration’s proposal to borrow a couple of hundred million dollars to get construction going before the size and cost of the jail are locked in.
The legislature slowed the project last fall when county officials learned construction costs would likely exceed original estimates. Some members felt it was worth waiting to see if some cost savings could be found by partnering with Kansas City, which has no jail but needs one.
The city had rented space in the current detention center for people awaiting trial or serving sentences for misdemeanor offenses. It now takes them to jails in other cities.
The current legislature — six of the nine members have been in office only since January — also would like to explore a partnership, even though the county’s jail project manager has said it wouldn’t save the county money and Kansas City has no jail plans ready to go or money set aside to fund such a project.
But mostly, legislators are concerned that the jail project will soak up nearly every dime the county has set aside for capital projects and that another source of jail funding needs to be found.
If that means waiting until next April to ask taxpayers to approve a bond issue to fund this jail the way the current one was first funded 40 years ago, then legislator Manny Abarca says he might be open to that.
“Hopefully not, but yeah,” he said.
All the delays and uncertainty have been frustrating, said Jeanie Lauer, one of two Republicans on the legislature and a holdover from the last legislature.
“It’s creating a bit of a greater challenge, certainly, for us from a financial standpoint,” she said. “What are we going to do now in order to meet the financial ability that we have? Are we going to downsize the size? How are we going to modify it? What are we going to do in order to be able to make everything work?”
On only one issue has there been agreement. In late February, White and legislators decided they needed to quickly uproot scores of mature trees on the site before an April 1 deadline. Otherwise construction would most certainly be delayed until Nov. 1 because the dead trees now scattered around the site in huge piles would have been protected habitat for an endangered species of bat that makes its home along the Blue River during the spring, summer and fall.
“If they remain,” county administrator Troy Schulte said of the bats in jest, “they can move into the adjoining trees closer to the river. We’re a big welcoming county.”
Concern and embarrassment
The jail impasse is one of many issues in which a majority on the current legislature has been at odds with the White administration since the first of the year, but it stands out as the most consequential.
Overcrowded and poorly designed, the current jail in downtown Kansas City has for many years been a source of concern and embarrassment for the community. Calls for reform began to grow in August 2015 when former County Executive Mike Sanders announced that the FBI was investigating reports that jail guards had used excessive force to control prisoners.
Four corrections officers were sent to federal prison for beating one jail prisoner while restrained. County taxpayers have spent more than $1 million settling lawsuits filed by former detainees or families of detainees who were harmed by guards, sexually assaulted by other prisoners or died from lack of proper medical treatment.
In 2018, a county grand jury investigation concluded that the jail was filthy, understaffed and unsafe for corrections officers and prisoners alike. It said that on at least two occasions inmates had used cell phones smuggled into the building to arrange the murders of witnesses to their crimes.
The grand jury’s report called for immediate actions to correct deficiencies and find funding for a new jail.
“The time for action has long passed,” the report said.
Management of the jail improved after voters removed responsibility for management of the jail from the county administration and put the sheriff’s office in charge, but the facility remained deficient.
White and the legislature hired consultants to begin planning for a new jail. The existing one had 760 beds but a functional capacity of 549, the consultants said. Yet as many as 977 people had been crammed into it at times, with some detainees sleeping on cots in the gym while awaiting trial.
To meet future needs, the consultant estimated in January 2019 that a new jail would need 1,300 to 1,800 beds and cost between $230 million and $270 million.
After further study, the county ended up settling on a jail with 1,200 beds at an estimated cost of $256 million. But since then, construction costs have soared and it’s now estimated that a facility with 1,256 beds would cost between $320 million and $333 million, depending on the amenities.
When those numbers were revealed early this year, there was sticker shock at the courthouse. White now argues that the county can no longer afford to build that big of a jail. He’s urging the legislature to approve construction of a detention center that would hold 1,000 inmates at a cost of $301 million.
“While there are varying opinions throughout our community about the size of the new facility, we believe the size proposed by this option is both justified and meets our current needs,” White and Forté said in a letter to legislators dated Tuesday.
They noted that the proposed jail is designed in such a way that more bed space can be added when and if it is needed, or more financing becomes available.
But County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker contends that county should not deviate from its earlier plans, even if the facility will cost much more.
“How often do we build a jail?” Baker said in a phone interview last week.
Crowded conditions
Under similar circumstances 40 years ago, she said, the county cut corners to save money and ended up with a jail that was near capacity the day it opened in the fall of 1984. Even after an annex was added a decade later, it was overcrowded. Judges still make difficult choices on who to release from custody while awaiting trial on felony charges.
In a blog post law week, Baker said that due to crowding at the jail, judges have little choice but to release some accused felons pending trial because all beds are filled at the detention center.
“If you’re outraged that a dangerous burglar is not in custody,” she wrote, “understand that a judge likely faced a decision to release a robbery defendant who used a gun or an accused child sex offender or a domestic abuser to free up a bed for the burglar. It’s Jackson County’s own Sophie’s Choice.”
Without naming him, Baker also took a jab at White, who she believes is using the excuse of rising construction costs to build a smaller jail than the one recommended by the county’s consultants. White and his chief of staff, Caleb Clifford, have long argued that building a bigger jail will only make it more likely that it will be filled to capacity in the same way that adding lanes to a highway only produces more traffic.
“Nearly three years ago, the jail consultant concluded we need a bigger jail. So we need a bigger jail,” she wrote. “Some policy makers do not agree with this statement and want to pick a number that is below an expert’s assessment of our needs.”
A county consultant earlier estimated that jail capacity needs to grow to 1,204 by 2025, and 1,366 by 2050, Baker said.
White and the previous county legislature had intended to pay for the jail with borrowed money, and the loan would be paid out of a county improvement fund that’s is expected to bring in $19.5 million this year. Some $16 million of that would go for loan payments.
But that leaves less than $4 million a year to pay for the county’s many other capital needs.
“The problem with that is, just the downtown courthouse alone needs about $250 million worth of renovations, right, because it’s been deferred maintenance for the last 40 years,” McGee said. “Then on top of that, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Historic Truman Courthouse (in Independence), they had major plumbing issues. If you want to go to the bathroom, you’ve got to go to a porta-potty out there.”
Until the legislature can decide how the county is going to meet its many needs, he and Abarca say, the jail project will be on hold, as far as they are concerned.
Perhaps there is still a chance to build a regional jail and get financial support from cities within the county that need jail space.
Kansas City has no jail of its own.
Previously, the city contracted with the county for jail space in the Regional Correctional Center in the art deco building next to the red-brick detention center tower downtown. But the county canceled that arrangement a few years ago because the city wasn’t paying its fair share of the costs of running that facility, and there were security issues.
Two women on minor city charges were raped after county inmates facing serious charges for violent crimes, including murder, got keys to an area where the women were being held.
Now city detainees are transported to the jails in Warrensburg and Nevada, Missouri, where 105 beds are available for Kansas City inmates.
That’s not enough, according to a report that the Municipal Court published in September arguing in favor of building a facility with nearly three times that many beds for people awaiting trial (typically less than two days) or serving sentences for misdemeanor offenses that average 53.7 days.
County inmates are awaiting trial on state felony charges that can land them in state prison.
If Kansas City were to partner with Jackson County, the county’s project manager, JCDC Partners, strongly suggested in November that it should build a separate facility alongside the county facility and not be in the same building.
In neither case would it save on construction costs, JCDC Partners said in that report.
Regardless, Kansas City has yet to put together a detailed proposal. The $6 million that city officials had earmarked for jail design in this year’s budget was redirected to salaries after pressure from the group Decarcerate KC.
Dylan Pyles, who heads Decarcerate KC, said more planning and community engagement is needed before the city budgets money for its new jail, and council members agreed at a budget hearing last month.
“We know that we need a municipal jail, but it doesn’t seem like we’re at a point in which we have a clear path forward,” Councilwoman Melissa Robinson said then.
Neither does county government at this point have a clear path, which is a shame, said Theresa Cass Galvin, who gave up her seat on the legislature last year to run against White and for two years served on the jail project steering committee.
“The county needs to keep moving forward, and then if the city decides they want to be part of the Jackson County Detention Center, that they need to figure out how they can come and catch up,” she said.
But she also believes it’s unwise for the new legislature to start rethinking the entire project at this late stage.
“This is a huge project that we’ve been working on for years and years,” she said, “and for them to just just come in...there’s no way that they can be brought up to speed on everything that has happened and needs to happen. It’s just not realistic.”
