After spending weeks promoting two sales-tax issues that would fund construction and maintenance of a new jail, Jackson County Judge Jeff Phillips must wait one more day to see if voters approve the measures.
Residents will head to the polls Tuesday to determine the fate of the two threeeighth percent sales-tax proposals.
One tax would end after the construction costs for a 100-bed jail are paid off. The second tax would be collected permanently to pay for operating the jail.
The taxes are projected to take in about $1.4 million yearly. The proposed jail would cost $8.8 million and would be built on county-owned property in Newport.
“I feel positive about it,” Phillips said of the chances of the taxes passing, moments before he spoke to a crowd about the issue in rural Jackson County last week. “It’s been well-received at these meetings.”
There is no known organized opposition against the taxes’ passage.
As of Thursday evening, the latest tallies availablebefore the weekend, about 300 people had cast ballots in early voting, a deputy at the Jackson County clerk’s office said Friday.
The deputy clerk said she thought it was an above-average turnout for a special election.
Phillips credited the turnout to a series of public meetings across the county. During the meetings, Phillips presented an artist’s rendering of the new jail and handed out pamphlets about problems at the old jail.
After its last inspection of the Jackson County jail in September, the state Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee put the lockup on a six-month probationary period. The committee will recommend its closure if corrections are not made.
The probationary period ends Saturday.
Officials are unable to meet the state’s requirements regarding the existing jail.
Built close to the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Newport in 1978, the 26-bed jail is landlocked and cannot be expanded, Sheriff David Lucas said.
Overcrowding is a major issue, Lucas said. At times, there are more than 50 prisoners in the jail. Also, the state inspection found that the 9-by-9-foot cells are too small and that the jail had an inadequate number of workers.
It’s not the first time the review committee placed the jail on probation.
“This is the last chance,” Phillips said. “If we don’t pass this tax, they’ll review our jail and then they’ll start the process of shutting it down.”
Jack McCord, the chairman of the jail review committee, has said he’s confident that the Jackson County jail won’t be forced to close if the taxes pass, and instead, the committee would extend its probationary period to allow time for the new jail’sconstruction.
If the measures don’t pass, the county could go broke paying to transport and house its prisoners at other jails, Phillips said.
The jail operates on an annual budget of $380,000. It would cost up to $1 million a year to hold prisoners at other county jails and to transport them to and from Newport, Lucas said.
Ronnie Baldwin, the executive director of the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association, said county jails across the state are seeing problems.
Greene County voters passed a three-quarter percent sales tax in November 2011 to build a $12 million jail.
Garland County voters approved a $42 million bond issue to pay for a new jail after its old jail failed to meet state standards.
Newton County voters passed a sales tax in 2008 to build a new jail that has since sat empty because a second sales tax to run the jail failed.
Newton County SheriffKeith Slape sends his prisoners to neighboring Boone County at a cost of $35 per prisoner a day.
Most recently, Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery removed 58 of his jail’s 102 beds after voters rejected a quarter-percent sales tax that would have helped fund the jail’s operation. The jail has been running at a $140,000 deficit each year, Montgomery has said.
Baldwin said passage of Arkansas Act 570, the Public Safety Improvement Act, has placed more of a burden on the county jails, whilealleviating overcrowding in the Arkansas Department of Correction prisons.
The act raised the threshold of what is considered a felony in some cases, creating more misdemeanors for counties to deal with, he said.
“Income from the state prison to house their inmates is down,” Baldwin said. “But costs for the county are rising because they’re holding more people.
“Crime will continue,” he said. “If you catch them, you’re going to have to do something with them, and it will cost money.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/11/2013