Waldo County restarts planning for new jail

BELFAST – Faced with soaring costs and crumbling infrastructure, Waldo County commissioners are once again looking into the possibility of building a new sheriff’s office and jail.

The commissioners met Tuesday with representatives of the Portland architectural firm SMRT and instructed them to prepare cost estimates for various aspects of such a project.

In 2003, the commissioners proposed an $18 million jail and county office complex, but it was soundly defeated by county voters. The cost estimates the commissioners requested Tuesday would be for a similar project.

John Hyk, chairman of the commissioners, acknowledged the defeat of the earlier jail proposal, bit said the situation has changed dramatically in the three years since the referendum.

Not only have the jail and sheriff’s office continued to deteriorate, Hyk said, the county is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars boarding inmates at other county jails because the current 33-bed jail cannot handle the growing number of inmates. Hyk said there have been many days this year when the county was responsible for up to 70 prisoners. The $18 million jail complex was designed with 70 beds.

Hyk noted that the boarding costs were more than the $100 per day. The county pays that money to Cumberland and York counties to house Waldo County inmates. He also noted the cost of paying corrections officers to shuttle inmates between Belfast, Portland and Alfred, as well as the wear and tear on vehicles and the growing cost of gasoline.

He estimated that the cost for boarding prisoners could top $1 million this year once all the figures are in.

“Aren’t we lucky we didn’t build that jail and we’re sending all that money to York County,” Hyk said. Had the jail been approved, the annual bond payment would have been $1.2 million.

Hyk said the county needs updated estimates on the cost of bringing roads, sewer and power to the county-owned 100-acre site off Lower Congress Street. In addition, the county requested estimates for the cost of building a stand-alone sheriff’s office, the projected cost of a new jail and the annual bond payments for the project.

Hyk said the various components of the project could be built in increments. The county requested separate estimates on the cost of the road and infrastructure and the cost of a new sheriff’s office with the ability to connect it to a new jail at some point. Critical throughout the planning process is the need to inform the public of the financial implications of doing nothing, he said.

“You can’t just say we need a new jail. Everybody knows that,” Hyk said. “We’re in a really good spot no matter how bad it is because we know where we are. We can figure this out and explain it because it needs to be done.”

Architects Dennis Judd and Arthur Thompson assured the commissioners that they could have some working figures by fall. They suggested that the county reassemble its jail committee and keep it involved in the process. They said the committee and commissioners should decide early what type of project they want and when to bring the proposal before the voters.

“It is the responsibility of the county to put the question to the people at some point in the future because of the financial implications,” Hyk said.

Sheriff Scott Story noted that Maine has the lowest rate of incarceration in the country and was second-lowest last year in the amount of money it cost taxpayers per inmate.

“We do a good job in this state considering what we have to work with,” Story said.