BROOKINGS – It's now official; Brookings County commissioners signed their approval of the Brookings County Detention Center expansion during their meeting Tuesday morning.
The resolution passed allows the county to begin to finalize decisions regarding the build, such as the issuance of bonds to pay for the jail. The resolution was unanimously approved.
As Commissioner Mike Bartley said, he's heard much support for the project and the benefits of the project are clear: “I think the project speaks for itself.”
Commission Chairman Larry Jensen said it's a matter of providing a safe work environment for jail staff, in keeping with county priorities of providing safe work spaces for county employees. Not to mention, the cost of the project will only go up if they don't tackle this now.
Costs were what worried Commissioner Ryan Krogman when he first heard the nearly $11 million price tag the architects anticipate, but he now believes it's worth the cost.
“I think we'd be penny-wise and a pound-foolish if we didn't get the necessary space and room to help rehabilitate our mental health issues, have ministerial rooms and things like that. To get those, we need to go to this level, and having heard from the public … I've come to the conclusion that we need to go this way,” Krogman said.
And although he's not enthused about raising property taxes to do all this, he's pleased with the bond rates they can get, keeping financial impact to county property owners to a minimum. As of yet, the bond still has to be approved and a final amount set in stone.
The proposed bond is for $7,370,000 at a bond rate of 2.91 percent with a bond life of 20 years. It will cost property owners an extra $0.1784 per $1,000 of taxable value. If someone owns a $200,000 house, this means paying $35.68 more each year over the 20-year period the bond would be in effect.
According to Jensen, about $560,000 is the average value per quarter of land in Brookings County, amounting to roughly $100 more in annual property taxes.
The county has $3.5 million set aside in cash in addition to what will be bonded, with the precise amount of how much to bond yet to be finalized.
The move to give the official OK to build the expansion comes after a second public hearing held Monday night in which the county once again was open to informing the public about the plans for the build, with Sheriff Marty Stanwick leading the talk.
After he summarized the project, members of the audience had a chance to ask questions and voice concerns.
One area of concern was looking out for the mental health of inmates and how the county was proactively trying to address mental health needs before they end up in jail as a result of their illness.
Commissioner Lee Ann Pierce said the county is working together with city leaders and the Brookings School District to assess the issue from all angles: what resources are available, what services need to be provided and by whom, to name a few aspects of the topic.
For Stanwick's part, he mentioned that the state is standardizing the booking process across the state, and this should ultimately make it easier to get proper help and support in place for those identified or suspected to have mental illness.
In his own department, they go beyond required training in how to handle interactions with instances of mental illness.
“South Dakota training (says) that all law enforcement has to have at least two hours of training a year on mental illness. I believe that's not enough. Most of my staff now has at least eight hours, and now I'm going into it a little more where they have 40 hours to help recognize (mental illness),” Stanwick said.
Carey Bretsch was curious about additional expenses beyond the actual build: more staff hired to man the facility, costs to operate and maintain the new structure.
“From my experience in facility management, you have to budget close to 5 percent of the capital cost annually for maintenance,” Bretsch said. “I was wondering if that was part of the equation when you were looking at the overall cost.”
The new facility should minimize extra expenses due to increased efficiency in both regards, to staff and maintenance.
With the old facility, Stanwick figured that for every 20 inmates, they need to have one correctional officer.
“With the new design, it's one correctional officer to 40 inmates.”
Still, “there will be a cost. There will be an increase in staff.”
He figures that two more staff should be added, something that would need county approval.
Commissioner Stephne Miller added that the architects and consultants working on the build have taken this into consideration and made them all aware of what it'll take to run the facility.
Brookings Police Chief Jeff Miller was also at the public hearing to lend his support. He said the needs of jails have drastically changed since he worked at the jail in 1976, saying that the jail needs to be updated to meet the needs of today.
Even Moody County Sheriff Troy Wellman made an appearance to support the jail expansion. As a sheriff in a county without a jail, expansions like this will be crucial for him to have a place to bring his own inmates, an increasingly difficult task as jails everywhere are filled.
Contact Eric Sandbulte at esandbulte@brookingsregister.com.
