Jail addition opens as temporary fix

A $1.64 million expansion of the Flathead County jail opened July 2, adding 40 beds to the chronically overcrowded adult detention center.

Space was created by remodeling the second floor of the Justice Center where the County Attorney office complex was located.

County officials acknowledge it’s a temporary fix until a game plan for a new jail is developed. To that end, Flathead County will send members of a jail planning group to Bozeman this week to tour the Gallatin County Detention Center.

The new addition to the Flathead County jail already is being put to good use, Sheriff Chuck Curry said.

From Friday to Monday, the department made 45 arrests, of which 31 were misdemeanors and 14 were felonies.

“Effective last week we began accepting misdemeanors [at the detention center] again,” Curry said.

It’s been years since the county jail has incarcerated most misdemeanor offenders, except for DUIs and offenses deemed violent or involving public endangerment, Curry said. There hasn’t been room for misdemeanors involving lesser offenses such as failure-to-appear warrants.

In addition to the new second-floor space in the Justice Center, the county added a couple dozen bunk beds to the existing detention center, bringing the total capacity to 164 beds between the two facilities.

“The goal in mind is to use every inch of space,” Curry said.

The jail census on Tuesday was 123 prisoners.

County Administrator Mike Pence said the reconfigured space in the Justice Center isn’t a permanent solution for the county’s jail needs, but it serves as a good stop-gap measure.

“It turned out very well,” Pence said. “Martel did a good job.”

MC Builders, a team that included Martel Construction and CTA Architects, was awarded a $1.31 million contract for the project. Change-orders approved by the commissioners during the construction bumped the contract total to nearly $1.5 million.

The changes included close to $105,000 for security plaster and prime coat for the walls, portions of the ceiling, doors for the bathrooms, and polycarbonate window glazing so glass from a broken window cannot be used as a weapon, according to county Grant Administrator Whitney Aschenwald.

“There were also multiple project expenses that fell outside of the scope of Martel’s contract,” Aschenwald said. Those capitalized items totaled $148,343, bringing the overall cost to $1.64 million.

To alleviate the jail overcrowding, another temporary measure put in place last year moved juvenile inmates to a Missoula facility to free up space for more adult prisoners. The juvenile detention center, located across the street from the Justice Center, was refurbished to house adult women inmates.

Built in 1985 to handle 63 prisoners at capacity, the existing county jail was overcrowded by the early 1990s and has been housing well over 100 prisoners nightly.

Now that the additional jail space is up and running, county officials are digging into the process of determining what kind of jail the county needs to build to replace the existing facility.

Six members of a Flathead County jail planning group will travel to Bozeman on Thursday to tour the 160-bed Gallatin County Detention Center that opened in 2010. Gallatin County voters approved a $32 million bond issue in 2008 to fund the lion’s share of the $38 million, 96,000-square-foot facility.

“Gallatin is close to a sister county in size and budget,” Pence said. “Their need is similar to our need and we’ll be able to learn from their experience.”

While Gallatin County built a 160-bed jail with room for future expansion to 200, Pence said Flathead County would design a facility for 260 beds “right out the shoot.

“If we build a footprint similar to Gallatin, ours would be a little larger,” he said.

Pence is working with county Finance Director Amy Dexter on a preliminary round of number-crunching for a new jail.

The county’s recently approved five-year capital improvement plan includes $50 million in funding for a new jail. The plan calls for spreading the expense of a new adult detention center over three years, with a $20 million earmark for fiscal year 2020 and $28.3 million in 2021. The capital plan anticipates asking voters to support a $37 million bond.

The county has saved $6.4 million for the new jail, including $1 million from the county’s payments-in-lieu-of-taxes federal allocation for this year.

Gallatin County built its new jail for about $400 a square foot.

“That was eight years ago,” Pence said. “Construction costs have gone up exponentially.”

County officials scheduled to tour the Gallatin County Detention Center include Sheriff Chuck Curry, Jail Commander Jenny Root, Commissioner Pam Holmquist, Dexter, Pence and Aschenwald.

Flathead County last year won a $40,000 state planning grant to evaluate the county adult detention center and expansion options. Pence said the grant likely will be used for a financial analysis for a new jail.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.