GAINESVILLE — The warden at Hall County's Correctional Institute has been patiently waiting for a new facility to open, and after several delays, he thinks the opening will now come at the beginning of 2016.
Walt Davis said in a Tuesday morning telephone interview, the weather gets the blame for most of the slowdown.
"If Mother Nature would've have cooperated with us, we would have been been open by now," said Davis. "We are anticipating that we will be able to have a grand opening the latter part of January and we plan to have inmates move in and be operational early February."
Davis, who has served as warden for three years, said he's anxious for the public to see what the county has done with SPLOST dollars and inmate labor.
"We've built a $7 million facility for $3.6 million...and I think that represents a huge value to the taxpayers of Hall County," said Davis.
He said the project was built at a substantial savings mainly because the county used state inmate mobile construction crews to build large portions of the new facility.
Davis said the new facility will not house as many inmates as the old building, mainly because the inmate numbers are dropping, not just in Hall County, but all across the state. He credits Gov. Deal's criminal justice reform programs with keeping more "lower level" inmates out of jail cells and in reform programs.
"There was no need to build a 500 or 600-bed facility," said Davis. "Ultimately, we're going from a 240-bed facility down to a 200-bed facility, but we're also - most importantly - being able to do that within the allocation of SPLOST."
Davis said the new correctional institute will serve two inmate populations. First, those inmates who are part of county work details will be housed in the facility. That program, said Davis, provides $2.5 million worth of labor to Hall County each year. The other inmates housed at the facility will be those inmates almost ready for re-entry into society.
"We have a very robust re-entry program in Hall County that follows the accountability court's model - it's called our REACT program - and the new facility has been built to accommodate that program," said Davis.
Davis said all he wants now is for Hall County to see the finished product.
"I'm proud of what we're doing here - I'm proud of what we've accomplished."
