By Lisa Trigg
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — More homework is required before any study on the Vigo County Jail will be funded.
A committee of the Vigo County Council agreed Friday to postpone a request to fund a jail study, pending more discussions with the American Civil Liberties Union on what would be an agreeable solution to the inmate overcrowding issue at the Vigo County Jail.
Council members Bill Thomas, Mike Morris and Ed Ping of the council’s facilities, services and special projects committee heard that a comprehensive study could cost up to $75,000. But county commissioner Mike Ciolli recommended no action on the issue yet.
“We are going to look at all options,” Ciolli said, referring to construction funding sources as well as whether to build on or build new on a jail building project.
He also pointed out that the future is uncertain for all counties as a new law will take effect to return class-D felons from the state prisons back to the county jails to serve their sentences.
Ciolli said that depending on the scope of a jail study, there is a range study costs of $14,000 to $60,000. He noted that in looking at the recent history of the jail, the inmate census averages about 280. But that doesn’t account for the returning D felons. And with an inmate cap set at 267 – the number of jailhouse available beds for inmates – some local inmates must be housed at other county jails.
The county entered a binding agreement with the ACLU in 2002 to keep the jail population at the 267 cap. Because of allegations that the inmate census has exceeded that level in recent years, a complaint of breech of contract was filed in August 2013 by the ACLU, prompting renewed discussions on how to alleviate overcrowding at the jail.
Commissioner Brad Anderson said that a study could determine how best to fund a construction project. There is a possibility of using county income taxes, as other counties have done. He also noted that the state will be changing its “good time credit” formula so that instead of two days earned for every day served in jail, an inmate will get less credit time and serve more of his or her sentence behind bars.
Sheriff Greg Ewing told the committee that the Department of Correction has estimated that 30 to 35 inmates in state prison will come back to Vigo County when class-D felons are returned to local jails. Those inmates usually have short sentences of up to three years or less, but that will still strain the available space in the current jail.
“That may not sound like a lot,” Ewing said of the estimate, “but it might as well have been 3,000.”
He also noted that Vigo County does not send a lot of class-D felons to prison, as other counties do.
But the aging jail facility, which has already been renovated and is now difficult to staff because of its layout, needs many repairs. For instance, there are 70 toilets in the original facility that no longer have replacement parts available. And, steel parts had to be fabricated for those toilets because inmates were breaking off pieces of the steel to use as makeshift weapons.
“Just adding beds is the wrong approach,” Ewing said of an expansion project, saying that he supports a comprehensive study that will look at what is needed and how to fund it.
Looking back at the newspaper headlines for the jail construction, Ewing said, reveals that then-Sheriff Andy Atelski stated in 1981 that the jail was outdated before it was built, and Sheriff Bill Harris stated in 2001 that the renovations would not last six months.
“For three decades, we haven’t done it right,” Ewing told Thomas, Morris and Ping, “and to be honest with you, we’ve wasted money.”
Commissioner Ciolli said that the design of a jail is important in order to maximize staffing and keep personnel and supply costs down.
Council member Thomas made a motion to postpone the funding of a jail study until more information is available from discussions with the ACLU.
“In my opinion, we probably need to prioritize whether we need a new jail or not,” he said.
With the postposement of the additional appropriation request, the jail study could be reviewed at any time by the study committee, which would make a recommendation to the full county council.
Meanwhile, the study committee also gave four favorable recommendations on additional appropriation requests from the county parks department.
One request was for the transfer of $30,000 to the Fowler Park dam rehabilitation project, along with two other requests were for additional appropriations of $31,272 and $200,000 for the dam project.
Park superintendent Kara Kish said the funds are needed to cover engineering costs. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has required the project because of the “imminent failure of the dam.”
Kish said that the county park and its lake provide important recreational opportunities in the southern part of the county. If the dam should fail, she noted, there is no anticipated damage to property or life.
Another additional appropriation of $110,000 will go toward construction of a shelter and a restroom facility at Dewey Point as part of the Wabashiki recreational area. Kish said that the state will pave the now-gravel parking area along National Avenue once the structures have been completed.