Henry County needs a new jail and Henry County leaders need to start doing something about it.
Consultant Jim Roberson delivered this news to county and municipal officials in a public meeting July 10.
The first public workshop on the subject will take place Oct. 9, three months after Roberson gave the county his report.
Roberson encouraged Henry County leaders in July to take immediate steps to figure out how many inmates the jail needs to safely house in the next 20 years and how the building needs to be designed to protect inmates and staff, while also promoting rehabilitation efforts.
The recommendations “must occur simultaneously with a deliberate and active public involvement process,” Roberson said.
The Henry County Council voted that July evening to accept Roberson’s recommendations to pursue a new building.
Two weeks later, Henry County Commissioner President Butch Baker recommended a community work group that would include elected officials and private citizens.
Baker said the group would research Henry County’s options with developing a new detention and treatment center to replace the current Henry County Jail.
“This committee should be made up of local elected officials and citizens of Henry County,” Baker said.
Baker said the jail committee would make multiple visits to facilities around the state and even outside of Indiana. He expected the committee would bring findings back to the county council by the end of October.
Henry County residents found out this week there have been no meetings about the jail since July.
“We haven’t had our first meeting yet,” Baker told the Henry County Council Wednesday during its September meeting.
Council president Nate LaMar agreed that the county needed to continue making progress toward a new facility.
“Time is certainly of the essence. The jail cannot be put off any longer,” LaMar said.
LaMar referred to a recent court action in which a U.S. District Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ordered Vigo County officials to hire more jail employees and create a timetable to build a new jail.
Magnus-Stinson is the federal judge over the civil rights lawsuit against Henry County following the death of inmate Brian Gosser.
“This is the moment that we talked about for all those years where we said a judge may mandate us to build (a new jail),” council member Clay Morgan said.
Morgan served as the co-chair of the local Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee while the county underwent the local jail study over the past two years.
The Henry County Council will be responsible for raising taxes to pay for the new jail. One option is to institute a new 0.2 percent income tax. Another option would be to raise existing taxes to the state allowable maximum.
Morgan shared concerns Wednesday that some Henry County officials might be waiting on a federal court order so they could say “we can’t help it, because it’s been mandated so we have to raise your taxes.”
Morgan said he hopes the Henry County will move forward with the process without a federal judge forcing them to.
“We’re at that moment,” Morgan told the people in the audience Wednesday. “It might happen to us... soon, if we don’t continue to move. But hopefully we will.”
Council member Richard Bouslog agreed.
“We need to meet soon. Very soon,” Bouslog said.
Public comments on taxes
Henry County Treasurer Gene Bundy added to the conversation as a county taxpayer. Bundy specifically mentioned Henry County’s public safety local income tax (LIT), which is estimated to bring in $1.1 million in 2019.
“I realize that we will probably have to raise taxes to pay for a new jail,” Bundy said. “I would be in favor of that. But I would be more in favor of it if I would see the council do something like each month put some LIT money aside. Start building the fund.”
Bundy said this would help show all Henry County citizens that local government leaders are also doing their part in the project.
Henry County resident Chad Malicoat also mentioned the public safety tax.
Malicoat’s concern was that the Henry County Council has used that money for so many other projects that they now don’t have money for actual public safety concerns.
“Right now, that fund basically, in this budget, is doing nothing but paying bills that existed prior to that tax even being passed. And that was not the intent of that tax. The intent of the tax was to build on public safety partnerships,” Malicoat said. “Alone this year ... you budgeted all but $55,000 of the LIT (for 2019),”
There needs to be more control over the public safety local income tax fund if it is going to help pay for a new jail, Malicoat said.
Public meeting scheduled
The Henry County Commissioners posted a notice Thursday evening that they would be attending a Corrections Workshop at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9 in the Henry County courthouse, 101 S. Main St., New Castle.
At that meeting, the commissioners will discuss forming a committee to visit rehabilitation and correction facilities, alternatives to incarceration, developing programs for wok release community service, upgrades to Henry County correctional future and plans of classifying offenders.