By Kelsey Landis
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — There’s no money in next year’s budget for improvements at St. Louis County’s aging jail as detainees live with moldy showers, overflowing toilets, leaky ceilings and overcrowding.
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page says the jail needs an infrastructure overhaul that would cost $36 million over the next five years, but the county has not identified any funding to pay for improvements.
Meanwhile, detainees suffer miserable living conditions, local criminal defense attorney David Naumann said.
“These people may be inmates, but they’re still human beings and they can’t be treated like they’re residents of a Soviet communist gulag,” said Naumann, who has three clients currently in the jail.
Naumann said his clients have reported a lack of hot water, lights kept on at night, having to urinate in sinks when toilets don’t work and overcrowding. Sometimes a two-person cell has three detainees and one has to sleep on the floor next to a toilet that overflows with excrement, Naumann said.
An audit of the jail released last month reported the same problems Naumann says his clients face. The jail fixed some of the issues auditors found, such as cleaning up a dirty kitchen, interim Director Jonel Coleman has said.
Fundamental infrastructure and plumbing problems remain, however, and fixing those would require a significant infusion of cash at a time when the county already faces a hole in its budget.
“There’s no extra money,” said Councilman Mark Harder, a Republican from Ballwin.
The council earlier this month approved a $40.2 million jail budget for next year, $1.2 million less than Page had requested. This year’s adjusted budget for the jail totaled roughly $40 million.
While crumbling infrastructure, overcrowding and understaffing at the jail are not new, the audit in September sparked discussions about conditions there. The majority of the jail’s detainees are awaiting trial.
When auditors from the American Correctional Association visited in September, there were 1,340 people housed at the jail, well beyond the facility’s maximum capacity of 1,232. The jail’s population regularly has met or exceeded capacity this year, according to county data. As of Tuesday, the jail’s population was 10 detainees over capacity.
Additionally, fewer corrections officers are overseeing more detainees this year. In January, there were six detainees per guard, according to county records. That has increased to eight detainees per guard this month. There were 79 guard vacancies this month, up from 28 in December last year.
The jail failed the audit inspection, and about a month later, the jail’s interim director asked the county executive to immediately invest $13 million in the building — including $12.5 million for a new tamper-proof fire sprinkler system to prevent detainees from intentionally flooding their cells.
That money “is only a fraction of what is needed to address the issues that are mounting” at the jail, Coleman wrote in a letter dated Oct. 22 . The jail will need an additional $23 million over the next five years to address “critical infrastructure improvements,” Page wrote in a letter to the County Council a few days later.
“These investments are essential to enhance safety, modernize building systems, maintain compliance with evolving standards and reduce potential liability exposure,” Page’s letter stated.
In November, Coleman outlined the problems in a hearing before the County Council. Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, a Democrat from Maplewood, said she has monitored jail issues since she was first elected to the council in 2018, including five deaths in 2019.
“We certainly don’t want to go back to the tragedies that happened a few years ago,” Clancy said.
Democratic Councilwoman Shalonda Webb, of North County, said the council is there to help.
“We don’t have a money tree in the backyard because, if so, it would be a lot different,” Webb said. “But we want to do as much with the greatest return on our investment that we can.”
Coleman responded, “We appreciate anything you give us.”
The council approved its budget for the jail about a month and a half later.
St. Louis County jail is dirty, moldy and understaffed, audit finds
An inspection of the jail found “signs of long-term neglect” at the aging facility.
Staffing, building maintenance top concerns at St. Louis County jail
The interim jail director blamed the low staffing on why detainees are currently only able to be out of their cells for about one hour per day.
Sam Page won’t seek reelection as St. Louis County executive
Page said in a statement Thursday morning that “too many leaders have forgotten that courage means standing up for what’s right.”
St. Louis County Council approves 9% cut in spending next year
The council on Tuesday approved $55 million in cuts compared to this year’s adjusted budget, including in the police, health and parks departments.
Budget cuts on track to pass without public input in St. Louis County
Depriving the public of an opportunity to weigh in on spending is bad policy, said one expert. “You just want to lose your mind because you know they’re not listening.”
Page says he will veto ‘unreasonable’ budget cuts. Council says he can’t do that.
One councilman said County Executive Sam Page doesn’t have the power to veto budget legislation from the council. Page disagrees.
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