2 levies on ballot to fund new jail

Faced with the potential closure of its 35-year-old jail, Jackson County officials are asking voters to approve two sales-tax initiatives in February that would pay for construction and operation of a new jail.

Voters will head to the polls in a special election Feb. 12 to decide on two three-quarter percent salestax issues. One tax would end after construction costs for a new jail were paid off. The other would be collected permanently to operate the lockup.

The additional taxes areexpected to raise about $1.4 million annually.

“We can’t do it on our own,” Jackson County Judge Jeff Phillips said. “If we don’t pass this tax, we will have to shut down our jail.”

The state Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee has routinely placed the 26-bed county jail, built in Newport in 1978, on sixmonth probationary periods for the past few years.

The jail has been overcrowded - at times more than 50 prisoners have been held there - and the 9-by-9-foot cells are deemed toosmall. There is also an inadequate number of workers at the jail, inspectors found.

The latest probationary period ends Feb. 16, four days after the special election.

A proposed 100-bed jail in downtown Newport on county-owned property is estimated to cost $8.8 million.

Jack McCord, the chairman of the review committee’s 3rd Judicial District - which oversees the Jackson, Sharp, Lawrence and Randolph county jails - said if the tax measures pass, he’s confident that the committee will extend the probationary period and not force Jackson County to close its existing jail while a new one is being built.

However, if the tax measures don’t pass, the jail will close and the county will have to pay to transport and house prisoners at other jails, Phillips said.

The jail operates on an annual budget of $380,000, said Sheriff David Lucas. It is estimated to cost up to $1 million a year to hold prisoners at other lockups and transport them to and from court appearances in Newport.

During the course of last year, the jail housed a total of 16,700 inmates, Lucas said.

“If we had to do that [pay to house the prisoners elsewhere], in 10 months we would be in financial crisis,” Phillips said. “We’d be looking at layoffs and other ways to save money.”

It’s not the first time the Jackson County jail has been cited by the Criminal Detention Facilities Committee.

In 2008, an inspection team recommended that the jail be closed for two months while workers replaced twoheating units. Lucas closed a portion of the jail and sent prisoners to Independence, Craighead and Poinsett counties.

It cost the county nearly $15,000 to replace the heating units.

Since 2005, $34,000 has been spent to repair a leaking roof and $15,000 on new lights.

“I don’t believe a jail should be a Holiday Inn, but there are safety concerns,” McCord said.

Jackson County isn’t alone in having jail problems that officials have hoped to fix with sales-tax increases.

Greene County officials asked voters to support a three-quarter percent sales tax in November 2011 to build a $12 million jail. The tax passed, and construction is under way on a 50,000-square-foot, two-story jail.

Newton County voters passed a 0.5 percent sales tax in 2008 to fund construction of a new jail. However, they rejected a second sales-tax measure that would have paid to operate it. The jail now sits empty, and Newton County Sheriff Keith Slape sends his prisoners to neighboring Boone County at a cost of $35 per prisoner a day.

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 deficit of $140,000 a year, Montgomery said.

Garland County is building a new jail after failing to meet state standards. Voters approved a $42 million bond issue to pay for it.

The construction bonds will be paid with a temporary 0.625 percent sales and use tax. Operation and maintenance of the jail will be funded by a permanent 0.375 percent sales and use tax.

“It’s a problem,” McCord said of jail expenses across the state. “It’s a no-win situation. The answer isn’t to house prisoners somewhere else. It costs too much to do so.

“We don’t like to dictate to the citizens of a county what to do, but ultimately that’s what has to happen,” he said.

Jackson County officials plan to hold several public meetings around the county ahead of the Feb. 12 election.

“Once we explain it to them, they seem to understand how bad this is,” Phillips said. “This isn’t a new issue.”

Because the jail is overcrowded, Lucas said, deputies are no longer incarcerating misdemeanor offenders

People charged with “nonviolent misdemeanors haven’t seen the inside of our jail for nearly four years,” he said. “We cite them and release them.”

He said the existing jail is landlocked and the county can’t add on to it, but building a new facility nearby is economically feasible. Thecounty owns the land and has utilities already running to the site, he said.

“This is the only option we have left,” Lucas said of the tax measures. “The way I look at it, is to think, ‘Is the safety and security of your family worth 75 cents on one hundred dollars?’ That’s how I feel about it.

“We need to get this issue behind us and get back to our jobs,” he said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 01/20/2013

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