Jail expansion is a top priority
Today is the day when the Flathead County commissioners will decide whether to pursue a creative plan for expanding the county jail, and by all means, they should go for it.
While we understand the concerns of some taxpayers that the county budget is headed upward, we also think that there are very good reasons why jail expansion should be one of the county’s top priorities.
Overcrowding at the jail can no longer be ignored. But we applaud the commissioners’ office for developing a spending mechanism that will allow the jail needs to be met without burdening taxpayers excessively. It involves levying the maximum amount of permissive mills under state law and devoting the revenue — about $10 million over seven years — to the jail expansion and later operating expenses.
That is preferable to funding the project through a bond issue, because borrowing would cost (by a conservative estimate) at least $4.5 million in interest alone over a 20-year period. And that’s IF voters approved a bond issue at all for this pressing need.
Of course, approaching the expansion through what is basically a savings plan will involve slightly higher taxes, too, but there are overriding, long-term concerns that must be addressed.
Sheriff Chuck Curry, Commissioner Gary Krueger, Justice of the Peace Mark Sullivan and District Judge Bob Allison make an extremely strong case about the need for an expansion.
The current jail was built in 1985 to accommodate 63 prisoners, and not long after, it had to be refitted, optimizing all available space so it could hold just over 100 prisoners. The jail has been on the verge of capacity ever since, but only because of the constant efforts of judges, jailers and law enforcement officers on the street to keep it from exceeding capacity.
It’s not well known to the public, but the priority for the jail is to hold felons, or people who are imminent threats to the public. Therefore, when the jail count is too high, misdemeanor offenders often have to be turned away at the jail when they show up to serve their sentences, or are simply released by officers in the field. As a result of that, felons account for about 80 percent of the jail roster on average — as much as double the norm.
This is an untenable form of triage that puts a truly unfair burden on law enforcement and local courts, not to mention creating the potential for a scofflaw mentality if offenders know they are unlikely to be jailed as long as they don’t commit a felony.
What the proposed expansion plan seeks to do is to be proactive, rather than waiting for something bad to happen that would motivate voters to support a bond issue for an expansion. Even under the fiscally prudent approach that is being considered, an expansion won’t happen for at least seven years.
“Honestly, my biggest concern is, will it be quick enough?” Sheriff Curry remarked.
There are other concerns associated with doing nothing. Other communities have found themselves shipping their criminals to detention centers at great cost.
Voters in Kootenai County, Idaho, have rejected jail expansion bond levies three times in the last 10 years, and now they are paying for it. Because of overcrowding at the county jail in Coeur d’Alene, taxpayers are now saddled with an annual cost of about $800,000 to house offenders elsewhere.
Flathead County needs to plan ahead and take action. One way to justify the additional costs associated with expansion is to consider that when the jail was built in 1985, the county’s population was only about 60,000. Since then, the population has grown to about 93,000, meaning there is a broader tax base that should be able to accommodate a larger population of criminal offenders. Deferring for another 30 years is not an option. The time to pay the piper has come, and an innovative way to do it has been identified.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.