CLARKESVILLE — Boarding of inmates at jails across North Georgia is costing Habersham County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Some of that cost is directly related to the Opioid drug crisis, sheriff’s office officials told Habersham County Commissioners during recent budget meetings.
Another problem is that the county’s current detention center, occupied in the mid-1990s, was undersized when it was completed, officials have said.
Currently, Habersham County is paying $35 to $50 per inmate per day to house inmates the county’s detention center can’t handle due to capacity issues.
Those inmates are housed in Banks, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin, Oglethorpe and other counties, meaning a Habersham County deputy sheriff has to transport them to and from court appearances, visitations and any required appearances.
During its work session Monday, the Habersham County Commission heard from County Manager Phil Sutton and Sheriff Joey Terrell about the challenge the county faces for keeping up with the growing jail population.
Terrell said he wants to ensure the county doesn’t build a facility that’s going to be outdated before it’s occupied.
“As part of the preliminary design considerations for the new jail, it was a requirement of both our sheriff’s office and our board of commissioners that the design firms and the architects and engineers involved in that project were well qualified and had experience in building jails, and jails of the size and of the make-up that Habersham County will need going forward,” Commission Chairman Victor Anderson told AccessWDUN. “We feel confident that both the architecture/engineering firm and the consultants that are engaged so far fully meet that criteria.”
Plans call for the new detention center to be constructed on a little more than six acres the county purchased a few years ago for $50,000. That property is adjacent to the existing jail on Detention Drive in Clarkesville.
“That way we would have the possibility to at least use some of the existing structure, if needed,” Anderson said.
Terrell said the current jail could be repurposed to house sheriff’s office investigators and the training division that are currently housed in a pair of mobile trailers on the property.
Anderson said daily jail boarding outside the county adds up over time, and that’s money that typically can’t be recovered.
“Currently, numbers as of today, we are housing approximately 60 inmates outside of the county,” Anderson said. “That’s in addition to the 150 to 160 that we’re able to house in our current jail. Based on the information from the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association and the consultants that we’re talking to preliminarily on our jail, we’re looking at building out 300 to 350 beds, with a total capacity of 500 beds in the future.”
Commissioners agreed they don’t want to build a jail to meet the needs of the county when it is occupied, then have to go back to taxpayers 10 years later because the jail population has outgrown the facility in such a short time. Instead, they want to build the additional unfinished space to be completed as user demand requires, but with the core components and utilities designed to handle the ultimate 500-bed build-out.
“Part of the initial design is that all of the support infrastructure in the building will be at least sized — may not be equipped but will be at least sized — to accommodate the eventual, possible 500-bed facility,” Anderson said. “Equipment is expensive, but it’s relatively cheap compared to building expenses, so we’re building the shell in essence of sufficient size to equip a 500-bed facility.”
A large jail will be costly, but the new facility is necessary, county officials agreed.
“At this point, we’ve gotten some very preliminary numbers that are north of $30 million to construct a jail of this size equipped the way that we’re looking at doing it,” Anderson said. “We feel like there are some opportunities to take some of that cost down, however until we get farther into the design process we won’t really know what the final number will look like.”
Sutton gave commissioners some possible financing options for the proposed new jail, based on a number of scenarios, but added it is too early to determine which of those options might best suit the county.
Anderson agreed.
“As far as the financing for this project, it is significantly higher than we had been hoping for over the last couple of years, and to really get into a discussion of financing options at this point is extremely preliminary and almost a futile exercise until we know what the voters are going to decide regarding the transportation SPLOST for roads and bridges that’s going to be on the November ballot,” Anderson said.
That’s because should the proposed 1-cent roads and bridges tax that is on the county’s November ballot fail, the county will have to keep roughly $900,000 per year on future Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax issues just to maintain existing county roads and bridges.
