Grant County Council is ready to fund renovations to the Juvenile Detention Center in order to alleviate overcrowding at the county jail.
At the regular meeting Wednesday, Councilman Mike Scott updated the council on the work of the Juvenile Detention Center (D-Home) Feasibility Review Committee, which consisted of Scott, council president Shane Middlesworth and councilman Mike Roorbach.
“I do believe that as a committee we are to the point that we recognize that we do need to do something, and we would like to see some movement forward in regards to the conversion of the juvenile detention center to expand to house the additional inmates and help alleviate some of the issues that we have that’s taken place in the jail,” Scott said.
For years, county officials including Sheriff Reggie Nevels, Superior Court 2 Judge Dana J. Kenworthy and Superior Court 3 Judge Warren Haas have called on the council and commissioners to approve a variety of renovation options that would house female inmates in the current juvenile detention center. Kenworthy said she believes the first serious discussions began in the summer of 2017.
The Grant County Jail routinely houses more inmates than its capacity of 274, with a 2019 average of 283.5 inmates per day. Nevels said it is not uncommon to see 300 inmates in the jail at one time, and Kenworthy noted it has been as high as 311 inmates at times.
“I don’t have to tell you we’re in the realm of lawsuits at this point for the overcrowding issue, so that’s a big concern,” she said. “So we are truly hitting a wall. There aren’t any more people we can get out of there, and we are trying.”
Scott said there are currently three options being considered.
Option 1 would convert the D-Home to a female-only facility with a projected one-time cost of approximately $140,000. Option 2 would convert the D-Home to a dual facility, housing female inmates and eight juvenile beds in separate wings at an approximate initial cost of $170,000. Option 3 would split the facility into a female wing and a 14-bed juvenile wing at an estimated initial cost of $197,000.
Kenworthy said she was in favor of the 14 juvenile bed option because having eight or no juvenile beds locally would force the county to enter a contract with another facility whether kids are placed there or not. The D-Home housed as many as 11 juveniles in December, she said.
“Renovation cost is very minimal, and long term cost for placing juveniles out of county is very expensive. It’s not in kids’ best interest,” she said. “And that’s the most important factor for me. It’s just not good for our kids, so we need to work hard to keep our kids here.”
Nevels said he set any hopes of renovations aside after not seeing any movement for months. He said he was shocked when he heard Thursday morning that council said they were ready to move forward.
“I saw it was on the agenda last night and I had spoken to a couple councilmen regarding why it was back on the agenda, and I was not informed of what decision they were going to make until this morning,” he said Thursday.
Nevels said he is also in favor of a dual facility, but he cautioned that the estimated costs may go up since they were calculated from bids the sheriff’s department obtained during previous discussions.
“The bids were on the table, and now we’ve got to go back to the drawing board to rebid because we know the price has probably went up. We've got to go all the way back through that whole process again,” he said.
Since council is the county’s fiscal body, council members requested that commissioners choose and approve a plan and then bring the plan before council for approval to pay for the project.
“We’re ready to fund it. Bring us a proposal please is what we’re asking,” Roorbach said to commissioner Mark Bardsley, who was in attendance. “We’re going to leave it to you commissioners to narrow it down which of those works. From a committee’s perspective, I think we can fund any of them if we needed to.”
Bardsley told council the commissioners would have a plan ready for them by the next council meeting in February.
Councilman Mark Leming said he believes the two biggest obstacles that have held up progress on renovations have been money, which council is now in a better position to provide. Other obstacles discussed were staffing and personnel.
“The second hurdle is still going to be out there getting sheriff’s deputies, staffing,” he said. “That is exactly one of the things we’re going to have to fight to get that done, but I think everybody else is on the same page that we have to do something to get it fixed.”
Nevels agreed, saying his department is already short staffed as it is and currently hiring. Renovations moving female inmates to the D-Home would necessitate hiring at least three more jail officers, he said.
“I’m in favor of doing that, but if we do, once again we would need additional employees to make it work,” he said. “That’s shocking news to hear that they are looking forward to going to the process, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
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