County commissions study on jail needs

Feb. 14—The Howard County Board of Commissioners has hired a firm to produce a study on the consistently overcrowded Howard County Jail to determine if renovating or expanding the jail is "practical" or if building a new jail is a better solution.

The commissioners last week unanimously voted to hire DLZ, a construction engineering firm, to conduct a study on the county's jail. The county will be paying DLZ $9,500 for the study, which is expected to be completed in about four months.

The county is still several months away at the very least from deciding to do something or nothing regarding any renovation or major expansion of its 30-year-old jail, which continues to deal with a yearslong overcrowding problem, but hiring DLZ is a significant first step in possibly doing so.

The study will be thorough, according to the agreement between DLZ and the county, and will have three phases with the end product that includes a recommended scope of work, a project schedule and a budget for the project. The three phases are:

Project Recognition

* DLZ will develop a written Project Recognition report describing the existing condition of the jail. The report will include details on the overall condition of the jail, its baseline staffing needs, current operational costs and its security system. This will be done through an onsite visual observation and onsite interviews.

Needs Assessment

* As part of the needs assessment phase, DLZ will 1.) review existing reports and supporting documentation developed by the county, other architects or other agencies 2.) analyze jail trends to determine the impact these trends have on the size and type of jail in Howard County and 3.) forecast rated bed needs in the years from 2023 — 2048. In summation, the needs assessment report will "become the basis for the Howard County Jail needs," according to the agreement, and "will examine the policies and practices of the jail and will identify functional and space deficiencies based on the space needs."

Facility Program Development

* In the third and final phase of the study, DLZ says it will identify a "function and space program recommendation" that will describe how the potential new or newly renovated/expanded jail will function and detail the physical spaces needed to support the jail's needs. The end product of this phase will be a "Facility Program Report" that will include "functional and space programming, potential site and estimates of probable costs for construction and operational costs."

Expanding the Howard County Jail or building a completely new county jail has been talked about by county officials for years, though it has not gained much traction largely due to the potentially high cost and their desire to let programs aimed at reducing recidivism and reducing the jail population, such as the work release program and the county's magistrate court, play themselves out.

The county started its 80-bed male work release program in 2018 and its 40-bed female work release program in January 2022. A magistrate judge was added to the county's court system in late 2019 aimed at expediting inmates through the judicial process in hopes to reduce the jail population. The Howard County Council budgeted this year an additional deputy prosecutor, public defender and court clerk specifically for the magistrate's court to give the magistrate more firepower to expedite cases.

But patience is wearing thin among some as the jail is still consistently housing well over 400 inmates despite having a bed capacity of 364.

"We thought the work release would help that (jail overcrowding) a lot, it's helped a little, but I don't think as much as we thought," Commissioner Brady Bray, R-District 3, said. "That's why we get this study to see which way we need to go."

Commissioner Jack Dodd said he is concerned someone may file a lawsuit against the county because of the overcrowding and that then the county may be mandated by a federal judge to deal with the overcrowding issue by expanding or building a new jail.

"I want to look at it before that happens," Dodd said. "I want to be proactive instead of reactive, and this is a way to do that."

While the commissioners are the ones beginning the conversation, ultimately, the decision to do renovate, expand or build a new jail is up to the Howard County Council because the seven-person board makes the financial decisions for the county.

Any major renovation or expansion project or building of a new jail would almost certainly need to be paid through borrowing, and any borrowing the county does needs majority approval from the County Council.

County Council President John Roberts, R-District 1, said he welcomes the study from DLZ but stopped short of saying whether he believes expanding, renovating or building a new jail is what the county should do.

"Information can't hurt," Roberts said. "I think we need to see what they (DLZ) say. I don't know what they're going to say or what they're going to do, so we'll find out as we go. We have ignorance there that we need to satisfy. Other than that, we'll just let the data guide us."

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.

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