Magistrates Vote To Move Forward With First Process of Establishing Regional Jail

Darren Doyle, story:
During the Monday, February 14th fiscal court meeting, Edmonson County magistrates voted to proceed with the first steps in possibly establishing a regional jail between Ohio, Butler, and Edmonson Counties.

Magistrates approved ordinance EC 22-05, which binds the county to only start the process, which will allow two representatives from Edmonson County to be part of a larger jail board. This board will oversee the research for a new jail between the counties, which includes hiring an architect, conducting environmental studies, searching for the most desirable property, and more.

Edmonson County Attorney Greg Vincent has discussed in multiple fiscal court meetings that this is the first process the county must agree to in order for Edmonson County to be part of the possible project. This step requires the hiring of outside firms to administer the work necessary to begin the project.

"The only thing this binds us to do, is to start the process," said Vincent. "We are not bound to create or build a new jail, we are not bound by any property, we're not bound to do anything at this point. We're telling the other counties that we're starting this process with you. We agree on the template on what things will look like, if--if we go forward."

Vincent reminded the court that the county would not be financially bound to the building of a jail until the issuance of bonds, or borrowing money to build it.

"At any time before the issuance of bonds, we can say 'you know what, we don't like this, we're not going forward with any more, we can't do it, we don't like you,' whatever, and however we want to phrase it. We're allowed to pull out at any point in time, prior to the issuance of bonds."

He went on to say again that this ordinance only allows the county to be part of the initial investigation, approved architectural plans, chosen property, the completed environmental studies, Frankfort approval, and the board receiving assurance of federal or state funding, and the final numbers being known in the completion of the project, and nothing past that.

In the January 24th fiscal court meeting, Vincent said in the event a regional jail is built, each county's financial commitment for the construction and first year of operation would be 50% from Ohio County and 25% each from Butler and Edmonson. After the first year, the percentage of a county's inmates would then determine what each county's financial commitment would be.

In that same meeting, he noted that architects are not cheap and other legal representation would likely be needed in order to avoid conflicts of interest. There would also be environmental and soil studies and he said he anticipated somewhere around a total of $200K in expenses for just the first stages alone. At that number, Edmonson County's commitment would be $50,000. He also added that the number was only his estimation and that it obviously could be higher or lower, but nevertheless, a financial commitment of some type would have to be made by the county if magistrates voted to move into the first stage.

Judge Wil Cannon suggested to magistrates that $64K be designated for this process, as laid out in his suggested list of funding allocation from the $2.3M in ARPA funds the county has received; however, magistrates will have the final say on how all the funding will be spent.

Edmonson County currently has a jail budget of $477,700. Current county inmates are housed at Hart County Jail, which  normally runs the county nearly $25,000 per month, depending on the amount of inmates at the time. Currently, the county has 48 inmates housed at the Hart County Jail, which is a bill of $2,160 per day.

Magistrates voted unanimously to approve the ordinance, with the exception of District 2 Magistrate Corey VanMeter, who was absent for the meeting.