Newton County Hires Architectural Firm for Jail

From today’s Joplin Globe:

The Newton County commissioners have hired an architectural firm to draw up plans for a jail expansion on which they have no plans to proceed anytime soon.

Presiding Commissioner Jerry Carter said the county has hired Archetype Design Group of Leawood, Kan., to draw up preliminary designs and conceptual work for a jail expansion. The cost of those services is $37,500.

But the commissioner said the county is in no rush to move any further along with an expansion of the jail.

“We are not in a position right now to commit to the jail expansion because it involves indebtedness, and we don’t feel like we’re ready at the present moment to make that commitment,” Carter said after a commission meeting this week. “On the other hand, we are sure we’re going to have to eventually make that commitment.”

Carter said the agreement between the county and Archetype is with the understanding that it will do only the first phase of the development plans.

“We thought it was prudent for us to go ahead and make the conceptual design, and be poised and ready to go out for bid at some future point,” he said. “Once this phase one is completed, we can either go forward or, if the economic situation doesn’t look favorable, we can put it on hold until such time as it does look favorable, and then we’ll be ready to go out for bids.”

Sheriff Ken Copeland said any possible expansion of the jail would depend on the state of the economy.

The sheriff said he does not believe an additional tax would be necessary, and that the county may have some options to use federal grants to finance an expansion.

“Right now is a bad time,” Copeland said. “We have people losing their jobs and losing their homes. We certainly don’t want to spend any money we don’t have to. It’s something that is a problem for us, and it’s going to cost us and the taxpayers either now or later on. It’s something that’s going to have to be dealt with.”

As recently as February, the commission had been planning to seek bids as soon as possible in an attempt to possibly qualify by the end of this month for some federal stimulus benefits that could have paid part of the interest on any debt involved.

Under the plan being pursued at that time, the jail would have been expanded by 40 to 50 beds at a cost of about $3.5 million. Officials were projecting being able to pay off the debt over 15 years through the county’s general fund.

Copeland said the current jail was built 13 years ago and is designed to house up to 80 inmates. In February, he said the jail’s average population in 2009 was 103 inmates per day, and that for several weeks last summer it had housed as many as 137 inmates per day.

“When it was built, the jail above the courthouse was keeping like 25 to 30 prisoners all the time,” he said. “So when we built this 80-bed facility, we figured it would last a long time. But the population is on the rise every year.”