Supervisors spend $110K on jail lock repairs
May 16—TUPELO — The Lee County Board of Supervisors has approved spending $110,000 to make emergency repairs to the county jail's locking mechanism, a decision that reignited discussion of the aging facility's future.
On Monday, county supervisors unanimously approved a $110,000 bid from Tupelo-based Prime Logic Inc. to repair the jail's electronic locking system, which has been out of service since April 30. Jailers are currently using manual locks for all exterior doors, fence gates, the medical center and booking pods.
County Administrator Bill Benson said a broken control panel's failure caused the malfunction, but the reason for its failure was unknown.
"There is no way to prove exactly what happened, but it does qualify for an emergency purchase because we need to have locks," he said.
Under state law, most expenditures of more than $5,000 require the county to advertise for bids, a process that can take weeks. With emergency purchases, county officials can bypass that process and simply obtain quotes.
According to Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson, the jail's locks have been a continual problem over the last decade. The county spent $80,000 to repair the lock system in 2018 when a broken control panel led to all interior doors needing to be manually activated.
Johnson told the Daily Journal on Monday that there was no estimated date for the repairs. Benson said the county was waiting on parts to make the repairs necessary to bring the locks back into working order.
Spending reignites discussion of replacement jail
The hefty expenditure to fix the jail's aging lock system sparked the return of an ongoing discussion of the facility's future.
On Monday, all board members seemed to agree construction of a new jail needed to be a priority, but differed on how to go about getting the work done.
District 5 Supervisor Billy Joe Holland said the county should hire an architect to give the board a more solid idea of what elements a new Lee County Jail would need and how much it would cost. It's an idea he first floated in November.
District 3 Supervisor Wesley Webb agreed with Holland's suggestion, noting that costly repairs like those to the locking mechanism were bound to crop up again and again.
"I just feel like we are throwing away money fixing this when we can solve the problem," Webb said.
But Board President and District 1 Supervisor Phil Morgan said the board needed to move past studies.
"We've done study after study," Morgan said. "When it gets down to the nitty-gritty of how we are going to pay for it, it falls apart."
In April, supervisors unanimously voted to rescind their intent to issue an $85 million general bond obligation that would have largely been used to fund the construction of a new jail. The board originally approved advertising its intent to issue the bonds on July 6, 2021.
Board members said they wanted to delay issuing any bonds until "more concrete" figures can be provided for the jail project.
Morgan said he didn't want to return to the discussion until the rest of his fellow supervisors were ready to move forward with the project.
"I am not spending any more money on (studies)," he said. "We know what we need."
Board considering price hike for housing prisoners
The county board is also considering a price hike for housing inmates from Tupelo and other outside municipalities.
The county currently charges $25 per inmate per day to house prisoners from outside of Lee County. But according to the Lee County sheriff, the cost to actually house an inmate for a day is closer to $41.
Morgan asked Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan, who attended Monday's meeting, if the city could shoulder the increase, should it be enacted.
"I'd have to see where we are, but I think we'd be fine," Jordan said.
Jordan said the city recently contacted officials in Itawamba County, which recently opened a new jail and has begun accepting inmates from outside the county, and was told they would house inmates at a cost of $25 per pay.
Jordan told the Daily Journal that the city was working on a contract with Itawamba County.
"We are just looking at other options because we are limited to who we can take to the jail," he said, noting the city only had access to 10 beds in the county jail. "We need an alternative in case we need to put someone somewhere, and there is no space."
Holland said he favored raising the cost of housing prisoners.
"If they can't come up with the money, they can take them somewhere else as far as I'm concerned," he said.
