Board Debates Cost of New Jail, Timing of Decision

    
Jail cost comparison
    Larking found costs per square foot ranging from $130 in Sampson County to $304 in Onslow county, and costs per bed ranging from $29,000 in Sampson to $98,000 for an as-yet-unbuilt detention center in Yadkin County. The low bid for Moore County's new facility came in at $27.2 million, yielding a cost per bed of $93,500.
    The five comparison facilities, three recently built, one under construction, and one tied up in litigation, were in Pitt, Onslow, Sampson, Yadkin, and Harnett counties. They range in cost from $6.8 million to $58 million and in size from 36,000 square feet to 191,000 square feet. Three, like the Moore County project, include both a detention center and a public safety complex, but the Pitt County project was an addition to their current jail, and the on-hold Yadkin County project is a standalone detention center.
    Larking homed in on the $21.5 million Harnett County facility, completed in Spring 2009, because it is roughly similar in size and cost to the Moore County project -- and because Moore County's Major Capital Projects Task Force had taken a close look at the Harnett Sheriff's Office and Jail while planning the local facility. Harnett's jail cost $206 per square foot, Larking explained, but only $50,000 per bed.
    Larking pointed to $382,000 in utility preparation and other costs for the Moore County facility, as well as a $900,000 construction contingency fund that may or may not be spent, to explain some of the cost difference.
    But, according to Sheriff Lane Carter, the more important cost escalator for the Moore County facility is the different, less expensive, operational philosophy it is designed to facilitate, as well the inclusion of support facilities that reflect prudent planning for the county's future needs.
    
Indirect supervision to save personnel costs
    Carter explained that the proposed Moore County design aims at keeping operational costs low and improving the security of jailers, by utilizing indirect supervision, rather than the direct supervision employed in the Harnett County facility.
    "We tried to keep the personnel costs low," Carter said " . . .working with the architects to have a limited number of people observing the inmates and a limited number of people walking the floor."
    Direct supervision involves placing one or more officers in the cell block with the inmates. "That is not a good idea," Carter said. "They are in there where they can get assaulted very frequently by the inmates."
    Harnett County places an officer in the "day room" of each housing unit. The Moore County design instead places a single supervising officer in a separate control room from which he or she can observe activity in four housing units at once. According to Larking's analysis, that makes a big difference in the cost of operating the jail.
    Harnett County's detention center has 300 beds and requires 54 full time officers to operate. Moore County's new facility will include 192 beds and require 34 full time employees to operate, Larking said. Harnett County added 28 full time officers when the new jail opened; Moore County expects to need no additional personnel.
    That personnel difference results in a significant difference in operational cost, Larking said, with Harnett County spending $4.2 million annually to man its detention center, while Moore County expects an annual budget of just under $3 million.
    Later in the meeting, in an exchange between Larking and Chairman Tim Lea, they discussed that Harnett County's facility houses and average of 150 local inmates per day. They have, in addition, allocated a portion of their detention center for the housing of federal inmates, for which the receive $65 per inmate per day.
    
More support facilities for future expansion
    "The high per bed cost is a direct result of having necessary support space for future expansion," Sheriff Carter told the Commissioners. He said members of the Major Capital Projects Task Force, talking with the officers actually operating a number of newer facilities, heard that the support space in those detention centers was inadequate.
    Both the Harnett County and Moore County facilities are designed with core facilities -- kitchen, laundry, medical, visitation, etc. -- that are supposed to be adequate to allow for future expansion of the detention center to house up to 500 inmates. But the support area of the proposed Moore County jail is roughly double the size of the Harnett County jail: 35,700 square feet, versus 17,300 square feet.
    That additional space again appears to reflect differing operational strategies -- for example, in the medical unit, which takes up 1,900 square feet in Harnett County but will take up 3,500 square feet in Moore County. The Harnett County facility includes exam rooms but no infirmary in which sick inmates can be housed. The proposed Moore County Jail includes and infirmary with two isolation cells -- the goal being to reduce the cost associated with sending inmates to the hospital.
    The proposed Moore County jail has twice as much space devoted to booking; a laundry five times as large, a magistrate's office four times as large, and video visitation facilities and a jail administration area that take up three times the square footage when compared to the Harnett County detention center.
    The new Moore County jail will be connected to the existing detention center, providing an additional 68 beds, though those beds are not expected to be needed for another 8-10 years. When they are needed, an additional five full time personnel will be needed to bring them into service. Larking said this will save $3.5 million to $4 million compared to the cost of building a similar-sized expansion onto the new jail.
    Carter began his presentation by saying that Sheriff James Wise in 1995 asked the Board of Commissioners for a 175-bed addition to the Moore County Jail. He instead got 64 beds. "Had we listened to the wise sheriff,' Carter added, "we wouldn't be here today."
    The county's 110-bed facility regularly houses more than 110 inmates; Commissioner Picerno has noted in other meetings that the average population in July was 150.

    The proposed project is not just a jail, but includes a 50,000 square foot public safety complex that will house sheriff's officers, the public safety department, and the 9-1-1 call center. When the sheriff's office was located in basement of the new courthouse in 1988, Carter told the Board, that was supposed to be a temporary solution to a space problem.

    "Twenty-two years later, and we're still there," he said.

    
Public comment
    Members of the public who commented on the proposed Moore County public safety complex and detention center during the Board off Commissioners September 7 meeting were almost uniformly opposed to the facility as proposed.
    While safety concerns raised by locating the jail in downtown Carthage have provoked consistent opposition from a group of downtown residents over the past several months, those voices were joined in Tuesday's meeting by a number of Pinehurst citizens who objected to the cost of the facility and the plan to borrow money to build it without seeking voter approval for the additional debt.
    In an unusual move, Chairman Tim Lea allowed citizens to express their opinion of the project not only during the regular public comment period, but also immediately following Larking's presentation. No Commissioner expressed opposition to the additional comment period, though, with one exception, the speakers were the same individuals who had spoken earlier in the meeting.
    Doug Middaugh of Pinehurst said the Board had "failed the transparency test" by using limited obligation bonds to finance the construction of the new jail and public safety building rather first seeking voter approval. Later in the meeting, Commissioner Nick Picerno pointed out that none of the five recent jail projects Larking used for comparison had been financed using voter-approved general obligation bonds.
    Libby Moody of Carthage asked why the Moore County is twice as expensive as the Harnett County facility on a per bed basis, and warned that a recent downtown detention center in Concord ultimately cost twice what the architects had estimated.
    Barbara Schindler of Pinehurst said the new facility was "the wrong building in the wrong place at the wrong time," and objected to a lack of citizen representation on the Major Capital Projects Task Force that designed the facility. That group included two private citizens -- retired architect Howard Warren and former Moore County Sheriff James Wise; three elected officials; Commissioners Tim Lea and Larry Caddell; and seven county employees representing administration, public utilities, public safety, and the Sheriff's Office.
    Correcting what he called factual errors by jail opponents, who claim falling home prices will result in lower county property tax collections, Walter Bull of Pinehurst said the county is not due for another property tax revaluation until 2015.
    Carthage resident Elizabeth Reilley objected to the idea of "a huge jail looming over this town" and said she was concerned for the safety of her children.
    Gordon Ray of Pinehurst said that decision amounted to "taxation without representation," while John Marcum, who organized a public meeting in Pinehurst to gather opposition to the project, said "the public is basically outraged by this proposal" which he said was "featherbedded." He asked the Board to "suspend the rush to judgement and leave the time available to do it right."
    Marcum also objected to the three minute time limit for public comment and the lack of an opportunity for citizens to ask questions and receive answers from the Commissioners during the meeting.
    
Lea asks for work session, more public input

    Commissioner Lea picked up on Marcum's comments when it came time for the Board to discuss Larking's presentation, urging his fellow Commissioners to schedule a work session, including more opportunity for pubic comment, prior to the September 20 meeting at which a vote is expected on the construction bids for the new public safety complex and detention center.
    "This is the first time that we have had a public discussion on cost concerning the detention center," Lea said. He later noted that the Major Capital Projects Task Force had estimated the cost of the facility would range from $25 million to $33 million.
    "You often design something, and, after you've designed it, you go to bid, and then, based on what the bid numbers come back at, you decide whether you can afford it or not," he said. "We haven't gone through that process. This is the first time that we've addressed the cost in this process since we started."
    He pointed to the much higher cost per bed when compared to Harnett County's jail and objected to the fact that 68 beds in the existing jail will be sitting unused for a projected eight to ten years. "Why don't we build 68 beds less and save the money?" Lea asked, estimating that could save more than $6 million.
    "We went from an $8 - 10 million addition that was being projected in 2004 to $27 million now," he said, arguing that taking on the debt to build the jail and public safety building will make it impossible for the county to build new schools or a new administration building in the near term without raising taxes.
    "Right now we have an opportunity to look at the costs," Lea said. "We need to slow down. This is not a time of the essence issue . . . I want to build a new detention center, but I also want it to be a cost-effective solution with a positive return on the taxpayers' dollars."
    "I am asking the Board to schedule a work session for us to be able to go through these numbers and  determine if there is a way that we can downsize this facility and still accomplish the end goal, which is to build a new detention center," Lea said. "The cost is out of sync with what we should be paying, and we ought to be more conservative today in this economy than we have ever been before."

Caddell, Picerno, & Melton oppose delay
    Though Commissioner Cindy Morgan supported Lea's call for a work session, which she said would give the Board more time to hear public input and then reflect on it before voting, Commissioners Picerno, Melton, and Larry Caddell showed little interest in the idea.
    "I say we bring it up on the twentieth and let anyone who wants to speak, speak," Caddell said. "I am tired of postponing this. We have been at this four years . . . I'm not agreeing to postpone, postpone, postpone."
    Caddell said the Board of Commissioners that voted to build the current jail gave then Sheriff Wise far less of a facility than he requested. "Now we are dealing with an issue that we should have dealt with years ago," he added.
    Caddell also disputed the validity of looking at per-bed cost and suggested the cost per square foot is a better measure for comparison -- a measure by which the proposed Moore County detention center would be less expensive than the Harnett County jail.
    "I think we need to open it up at our next meeting," Commissioner Melton said. "We can get input there."
    Commissioner Picerno said his greatest concern was that overcrowding in the current jail is unsafe for both inmates and officers.
    "The people that the detention center holds, in most cases, are people awaiting trial," he said. "They are not convicted of anything. They are citizens just like me and you, and they deserve a place that is not sleeping on top of another inmate or putting the jail personnel at risk because you have multiple people crowded into an area that was never meant to hold an inmate."
    "I can twist numbers just as good as the next guy," he said. "The fact is . . . we have a serious need. We put a group of citizens together [the Major Capital Projects Task Force] including our sheriff and law enforcement personnel and a highly respected architect. They went and did the due diligence and this is what they brought to the Board. And that is what we are voting on."
    Picerno said he was elected to make decision based on the facts he has before him. Noting that no opponents of the jail had called him to discuss the issue, he said "I've have had a lot of people stand up here and accuse my company of doing wrongdoing, and accuse myself of doing wrongdoing, but I've not had anybody tell me how to solve it. Or give me any suggestions. Or sit down sit down and have a common sense one on one conversation about it."
    Noting that no North Carolina county has used voter-approved general obligation bonds to fund jail construction in a number of years, Picerno said he would have liked to see it go out for a vote "a couple of years ago, when we had time to react to it. But now we are at a point of solving a problem that has plagued Moore County for years and years and years, and now we're going to back track? I don't understand that."
    
Next meeting
    The Commissioners are expected to take up construction bids for the new detention center and public safety complex at their Monday September 20 meeting -- and to take public comment on that and any other items during the meeting, which begins at 6:00 pm.