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| CCA would pay for new jail expansion |
| By The St. Petersburg Times |
| Published: 06/08/2006 |
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BROOKSVILLE, FL - Seven months after completion of an $11-million addition, officials are again talking about expanding the Hernando County Jail - only this time Corrections Corporation of America might be willing to pay for it. Jail warden Don Stewart met recently with County Administrator Gary Kuhl to float the idea for a 240-bed addition, which could be built as a second story on the jail's recently expanded wing. If that couldn't be done while the first story is occupied, Stewart suggested that a 240- to 360-bed addition be placed elsewhere on the property on Spring Hill Drive south of Brooksville. "Additional jail space is going to be needed within 2-3 years. This is a proactive approach to addressing the need," he wrote in a followup letter to his meeting with Kuhl. "This provides an avenue to move from a cost center to a revenue center." Even before the latest expansion was completed, officials had been talking about the next one. Kuhl said the current capital improvement plan has identified $10-million in Year 3 for a jail expansion. Kuhl emphasized that officials are just talking right now, and there are no firm plans for the addition. But the expansion, as proposed by the warden, would be different from previous ones for two reasons. First, it is explicitly geared toward bringing in federal inmates. Second, CCA has offered to pay for the addition. The original portion of the jail was built in 1988 at a cost of $6.3-million. It had 252 beds. The county paid for construction and then immediately hired CCA to operate the facility. In the years since, the population of county inmates has grown from 145 in 1988 to 525 on Tuesday. The jail has had to expand to keep up. The most recent expansion, completed in November, left the jail ready to hold 730 inmates, far more than the 525 now incarcerated. But that number doesn't include a significant population of federal inmates. Across the country, jails have been cashing in on the federal government's growing need to find beds for inmates detained by the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In Hernando, the federal government pays $42.50 per inmate per night; 15 percent goes to the county, and 85 percent goes to CCA. At last count, there were 155 federal inmates in the jail. As the county inmate population continues to grow, the federal population will have to be reduced. That would mean a loss of revenue for CCA and, to a lesser extent, the county. Stewart wrote that expanding the jail again would be a "win-win solution" for CCA and the county. It would allow CCA to "increase revenues by serving our federal customers" who have "significant bed needs immediately." And it could accommodate significant growth in the county inmate population. This is not the first time CCA has built a county jail with federal inmates in mind. In Citrus County, CCA is building a 360-bed expansion, which initially will be filled almost entirely with federal inmates. Citrus will not pay a cent for the $19-million facility as long as it continues its day-to-day operational contract with CCA for the next 20 years. In 2003, before the Hernando County Commission voted to expand the jail, Commissioner Robert Schenck asked about the possibility of having CCA pay for it. |
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