MTS_widgetCallback({"24_0": "","23_0": "
New jail is necessary, but would be costly
\"\"
The Chronicle-Telegram Editorial Board

That Lorain County needs a new jail isn’t in doubt.

The question is, how will the county pay for it?

Built in 1977 with an addition in 1998, the jail has a litany of problems, including a leaky roof, plumbing and drainage issues, over-capacity HVAC units in constant need of repair and too few maximum-security cells.

“It’s really nickel-and-diming us to death,” sheriff’s Capt. Jack Hammond told the county commissioners last week.

Which is why it’s good the commissioners plan to hire someone to assess the jail. Requests for proposals for that work are due May 19.

The complaints about the jail’s deterioration aren’t new. As Sheriff Phil Stammitti pointed out, jails operate continuously, which means they age faster than typical buildings.

He told us Tuesday that it would probably be more expensive to renovate the jail than to build a new one.

Regardless, addressing the jail’s problems won’t be cheap.

Commissioner Matt Lundy, a Democrat, last week estimated building a new jail would run somewhere between $50 million and $60 million. By the time work got underway in a few years, the cost could run even higher, he acknowledged Tuesday.

Even with the roughly $34 million the county carried over from 2021 into 2022, the commissioners don’t have that kind of money lying around.

Nor is the county permitted to use any of the $60 million it’s getting from the American Rescue Plan to build a new jail. Yes, some of that money could be used to free up funds elsewhere that could go toward the jail, but it’s doubtful that would cover the full cost.

The county could seek help from the state, but, as Stammitti said, sheriffs in other counties also want money to help them deal with their own aging jails, some of which date to the 1800s.

Commissioner Michelle Hung, a Republican, told us the county is in a strong position to borrow money to help pay for at least some of the cost. She suggested the county could put some of its reserves toward the jail and borrow the rest without going to voters.

That’s a possibility, but it’s also risky.

When the county built a new Justice Center, which opened in 2004, it paid about $25 million of the roughly $45 million price upfront. Only a few years later, the county was grappling with budget deficits brought on by the Great Recession.

There is something to be said for keeping money in reserve for a rainy day.

That means the commissioners likely will need to consider asking voters to approve a sales tax increase or higher property taxes to repay a bond issue.

In 1994, voters approved a 0.25 percent sales tax increase to pay for the jail expansion.

The county still collects that sales tax, but Stammitti said last year it brought in around $12 million that went toward jail operations. Even with that money, the commissioners still kick in around $5 million to operate the jail, the sheriff said.

There’s also no guarantee that voters would support a sales tax hike. The commissioners have tried multiple times in recent years to get a new sales tax passed to help fund county operations, all of which failed.

That prompted two of the three then-commissioners to impose a controversial 0.25 percent sales tax increase in 2016. Lundy objected at the time, and he voted to roll back the increase in late 2020. (Hung, Lundy and Commissioner Dave Moore, a Republican, told us they wouldn’t raise the sales tax without a vote of the people.)

Passing a bond issue also might prove difficult. Last year voters rejected a modest levy that would have boosted funding for the county’s Crime Lab and Coroner’s Office.

The commissioners all told us it was too early to discuss whether they would need to raise taxes to pay for a new jail. Once the jail assessment is completed in six to eight months, they said, they would figure out how to pay for it.

Perhaps a sales tax increase or a bond issue won’t be necessary, but if one is, now is the time to start laying the groundwork to win voters’ support for it.

Share Story
","userId":-1});