EDITORIAL: Jail fix not ideal, but workable

Faced with chronic overcrowding at its 30-year-old jail, Flathead County is moving forward with a plan to begin sending young offenders from the juvenile detention facility to Missoula.

This short-term solution — a Band-Aid fix at best — will free up room at the juvenile center for adult inmates until the county has the money to build a new adult jail or expand the existing facility. Though it’s not an ideal situation, it seems like a workable option.

Sheriff Chuck Curry said it’s the only viable option he’s found, and as he bluntly told the county commissioners: “I don’t have a Plan B.”

It’s good to know that Flathead’s juvenile inmates will have access to the same level of services they have in Kalispell.

The cost of shipping out our juvenile offenders, at an estimated $345,000 a year for an average of four juveniles, gives us a bit of sticker shock. But it really illustrates the exorbitant cost of incarcerating both juvenile and adult inmates.

We remain solidly behind Flathead County’s plan to set aside money for a bigger jail through a funding mechanism set up a year ago when the budget was approved. The commissioners opted to reclaim mills from past years and levy them in future years, and by doing so expects to save about $7 million over seven years. By tapping into those permissive mills and levying to the maximum level allowed, the county is earmarking the new tax revenue and transferring it to the capital improvement plan for the jail expansion.

Yes, this maneuver is costing taxpayers a little, but the first year’s cost to the owner of a $200,000 home was only about $9.50. For the first two years of the seven-year recapture, the county has set aside a little over $2 million and will continue to recoup about $1 million each year toward the jail project.

It seems like a rather innocuous way to pool money for a better jail. And let’s face it, it’s doubtful the county would be successful at this point in getting voter support for a bond issue to build a new jail.

Right now the space crunch is critical. With plastic beds the county is currently able to boost the official capacity to 107 inmates, but the jail census has reached as high as 117 prisoners in recent weeks. The county has been releasing low-risk offenders before weekend jail traffic surges. That means people who should be jailed aren’t being jailed.

Let’s hope the county’s short-term solution will suffice until a bigger facility can be built.