Fiscal court considers hard choices from jail feasibility study

Sep. 26—When it comes to the prospect of building new jail space to hold inmates in Pulaski County, there are several options — and none of them seem ideal.

That was the tone of the discussions during Tuesday's Pulaski County Fiscal Court meeting, during which Pulaski Jailer Anthony McCollum was joined by two key consultants in presenting the feasibility study for a new detention center to magistrates.

Ultimately, the choices boiled down to these three: one, build a new jail at great cost, with no guarantee of filling all the beds necessary to help pay for the facility; two, expand the current detention center, which won't add enough beds to solve current overcrowding concerns; or three, scrap the local jail altogether and send inmates elsewhere — which will still come at some cost to the county.

Keith Brock of Compass Muncipal Advisors provided the court with the financial details of the options for building a new facility. A 650 bed detention center could generate over $9 million a year in revenue over a 30-year period, but with expenses of nearly $7.5 million and debt service of over $3.29 million, that would leave the county with annual shortfall of over $1.5 million. That would be at a cost of $53,233,831 for building the jail — and that doesn't include the cost of acquiring the necessary 10 to 15 acres of land to build it. Also considered was a 450-bed facility, but the ultimate projected shortfall from that would only be about $13,000 less than the other option, and the total construction cost about $7 million less.

Also present to discuss the project with the court was Bill Pickering of CMW, a Lexington architecture firm. Pickering said that they studied the historical trend of the jail's population from 2011. He said that the existing jail has has a rated capacity of 171 beds, and since about 2016, the jail has been operating at population numbers over capacity, reaching around 400 beds needed until 2020 and the impact of Covid-19, which caused those numbers to drop somewhat. Since then, however, there has been a resurgence in numbers, and currently the jail is at about 350 inmates daily, noted Pickering.

"You have so many county inmates that you're obligated to house essentially at no cost, and so how do you support the financial part of the facility?" asked Pickering. "That would be looking to either house inmates from other counties with interlocal agreements, or to obtain state inmates, which you have right now. It's part of the problem; your state inmates ... are causing the population to really exceed the rated capacity. The other option is to develop agreements with (the) federal system in order to house federal inmates. Those are the options for a revenue stream (from) inmates."

Pickering noted that the state can't guarantee that it will provide the jail any particular number of inmates, however, which makes it difficult to know whether a new jail would have what it needs to make the revenue it needs.

The 650-bed facility would offer a mix of lodging types, including isolation housing, and minimum, medium, and maximum dorm housing. There would also be space for classrooms, multi-purpose rooms, outdoor recreation, medical areas, food service and laundry, and the administration areas. That one would a one-story structure spread out over 103,000 square feet.

The existing facility was built in 1988, and is apparently experiencing some structural damage, including cracking in the brick veneer and wear-and-tear on the roof, that has resulted in water infiltration into exterior walls. Pickering said that the existing building needs maintenance and repair if nothing else, but expansion of the current jail is possible.

However, it's likely that only about 50 or 60 additional beds could be added, which means that the jail would still be over capacity at its current numbers. Another problem is that the existing kitchen and laundry facilities are already being burdened by the current overcrowding, and would not be well-served to handle an official expansion.

McCollum observed that the jail's local inmates, many are pre-trial detainees, are about 175; there are only one or two county-sentenced in the jail. Most of the rest of the jail's population is made up of state inmates who have been sentenced and remain in the facility.

Magistrate Mark Ranshaw asked about the projected expenses for the 650-bed facility, curious about what the jail population factored into that $7,489,088 figure would be, and it it's assumed that every bed would full. Based on Pickering's numbers, Ranshaw observed that the jail would have to maintain a count of 520 inmates for the expenses and revenue presented in the feasibility study.

"If we don't have 520 in our jail, our revenue is going to drop, which is going to make the county pay more in expenses," said Ranshaw. "You're already showing in this figure $1.5 million in shortfall that the county's going to have to pay through their general fund. So if we don't fill these beds, that means that shortfall would be even higher for the county every year, which would cost the county more out of their budget to maintain the jail. We're paying $1.6 million this year out of the general fund to maintain what's there now.

"With the fact that county revenue's down, I'm just wondering how the county can maintain a 650-bed facility, or even a 450-bed facility without any guarantees that we're going to be able to fill (the beds)," he added. "... I don't know how we can do this without going to the county residents and asking for help to build and maintain this."

Ranshaw also noted that "if we had a way to just guarantee that we're going to fill up a 650-bed facility, that would be almost a no-brainer."

McCollum said that they considered the future when looking at the options for the larger facilities, with the potential for growing into the 450- or 650-bed counts. But significant maintenance needs to be done to the current jail at the very least, and the question becomes whether officials want to "put a Band-Aid on" the current problems or build a new facility that can effectively hold more inmates, noted the jailer.

"We wanted to bring this to the court and to the residents of Pulaski County and say, 'This is where we're at.' These are just projections that we're looking at. There are no guarantees," said McCollum. "... (Interest rates and rising costs) are another thing that we've got to look at too. If we try to revisit this a few years on down the road, then what's the cost of it going to be then?"

Magistrate Mike Strunk said they were looking at the possibility of expanding to around 800 beds a few years ago, and could have done so at that time for $35 million; "We should have pulled the trigger on it then, I guess."

However, Strunk noted, "If you close (the current jail) down, you're going to spend almost $4 million a year housing them somewhere else. It's a catch-22 and something that you've got to have, but you've got to figure out how to pay for it."

Another factor is that if the county magistrates decided today on a jail plan — and no decision was taken at Tuesday's meeting — it would be three years before the jail personnel and inmates could move into the new facility, including approximately a year for planning and bidding and two for construction. An expansion of the current jail would probably take about two-and-a-half years, and cost about $5 million to $9 million.

Ranshaw said that the expansion "might be a better option at this point" but still "not a cure-all" for the problems facing the jail.

"There's a lot to this," said Ranshaw. "It's not going to be simple, and it's going to be hard to figure out where to get the money."

In other fiscal court business:

—Trick-or-treating hours were set for the county (outside of incorporated cities) from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, October 31.

—The fiscal court passed a resolution making official the acceptance of $445,766 discretionary funding through the governor's office — obtained with the help of local Democratic Party Chairperson Dr. Rodney Casada — for the widening and resurfacing of Campground Road in northern Pulaski County.

Casada told the Commonwealth Journal that he was glad to work with the fiscal court and happy to be of help.

"Judge (Marshall) Todd and I talked about how the road needed to have something done with it," said Casada. "... It's kind of a narrow road and needs upgrading."

—Todd said that the courthouse will play host to a veterans administration office, following conversations with Congressman Hal Rogers. The court approved furnishing an office for this purpose, which will begin on October 1, and will handle veteran complaints and needs. Todd noted that all the county is doing is supplying the office, but won't get any money for it, nor does it cost the county anything to operate; "It's just good will."

—The Fleet Maintenance and Solid Waste departments both made personnel hiring requests that were approved. The court also opened a bid for $373,108 from Don Franklin Auto for a lease vehicle buyout, 11 used vehicles, which the court accepted for review.

—Treasurer Crissa Morris got approval from the court to promote Jessica Sturgill to assistant finance officer.