Oklahoma County approves first round of ARPA funding, contracts for new jail

Oklahoma County commissioners have contracted the first advisers for the new jail project and approved a first wave of coronavirus relief spending, more than $23 million, for 16 projects across the county.

Municipal bonds experts and public finance attorneys were among those who received contracts during the board's regular meeting Monday.

The county received about $154 million from the federal government as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. Funding must be allocated by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026. Monday's vote marked the first time projects have been approved following the hiring of Accenture, a third-party firm, to advise the county in proper administration of the funds.

Who is getting funding and for what projects?

Originally, some county officials had suggested using the funding toward the costs of building a new jail. A $260 million bond package approved by voters in June will leave the county short of the total needed to construct the facility.

However, final guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department stated that coronavirus relief funding could not be used to construct detention facilities, leading the county to shift its priorities. County officials have now said federal relief funding may be used to pay for other applicable projects across the county to allow general county funds to be reallocated to jail construction costs.

"I'm hopeful, (approval of funding) also tackled projects that we could not have otherwise afforded," said Brian Maughan, District 2 commissioner and chairman of the board. "That won't be necessarily offsetting routine expenditures or anything that we currently have budgeted in every case, but certainly in some cases."

The current jail administration and trust were among several departments that requested funds for projects. Monday's 16 approved projects include:

• Sheriff's Office — The Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office received the largest sum of funds Monday, with three projects totaling $11,758,776. More than $8 million of that funding is earmarked for "comprehensive community violence intervention," while the rest is listed as reimbursements to the sheriff's special revenue fund for previous fiscal years. The sheriff said in Monday's meeting that all of the funding works together as a "holistic approach" to reinvesting in the community by putting more into programs focused on mental health, school resource officers and more.

• Emergency Management — More than $5 million was approved for the building of a new emergency operations center. The county now leases storage space from Oklahoma City annually for the department and, among other things, anticipates the new operations center eliminating that cost.

• Juvenile Bureau — The juvenile bureau received more than $2.75 million for five projects including replacing the roof and elevators and investments in telehealth for mental health services and violence intervention programming. J'Me Overstreet, juvenile bureau director, said the department has never had this kind of resource for juveniles, but "over half" of the department's population is "gun-involved and gang-involved youth."

• Detention Center — The county jail received more than $2.2 million for heating and air systems and updates to the loading docks. The two projects are the only ones approved at this time by the policy and governance board for the commissioners' consideration from a list of 13 submitted by the jail trust.

• County information technology — The county's IT department received nearly $800,000 for four projects, including upgrades to servers and technology infrastructure, like "disaster recovery hardware" replacement.

• Engineering — One engineering project, a new front entrance for the annex, was allotted $1 million.

More:Voters approve Oklahoma County jail's $260 million bond package in primary election

Advisers, lawyers mark first steps in jail-building process

The county also approved joint advisers and joint counsel to work on the new jail, with contracts going to two firms for each role. Municipal Finance Services Inc. and D.A. Davidson & Co. will provide services as the county's municipal advisers for the bonds. Legal counsel will be provided by The Public Finance Law Group PLLC. and the Williams, Box, Forshee & Bullard P.C. firms.

The hiring of the firms is the county's first major step in the process for constructing the new jail since voters approved the bond package on June 28.

"They had been helping us along the way, getting to this point, but there was no reason to formalize a contract unless the bond proposal passed," Maughan said. "Probably around the first of the year is the first time that those (bonds) can be sold."

The county is also looking into bringing Oklahoma City onboard as a project manager for the jail planning and construction. The city has more experience with building large projects than the county and has the potential to help the county avoid mistakes made during the construction of the current jail in the early 1990s, Maughan said. A partnership also can provide more oversight to help the county reach its goals for the standards it wants in place at the jail, he said.

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"We're going for the top accreditation, so we want to make sure we get that," he said. "I want everybody we can get to sign off on it on the front end."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma County allots first round of federal relief funding