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| County backs plan for jail funds |
| By santamariatimes.com - Marga K. Cooley |
| Published: 12/07/2011 |
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Despite concerns about finding nearly $18 million a year in operational costs, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday gave initial support to Sheriff Bill Brown's quest for $80 million in state money to build a bigger and better North County jail. The support allows Brown to submit an application to the state Corrections Standards Authority, an arm of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, for the money under Phase II of the AB 900 Jail Construction Financing Program. The program was announced Oct. 7, days after the state-mandated prisoner-realignment program kicked in that will see the county assuming responsibility for hundreds of inmates a year that would normally have been sent to state custody. If the application is successful, the money would replace $56 million that the county was awarded in 2008 under Phase I of the program. The award is better, Brown said, because the county will be responsible for only 10 percent of the cost of constructing the jail, and get a larger facility. Under the Phase I program, the county was required to match 25 percent. Citing a "significant need" that he said has been documented by grand juries, the county's Blue Ribbon Commission on Jail Overcrowding and enhanced by state realignment, Brown asked the board to "take another major step toward building a much needed jail facility in the North County." Brown noted that the North County accounts for 57 percent of the county's jail population, and said that since January 2008, more than 5,500 inmates have been released early because the county doesn't have enough beds. Of those, he said, 289 reoffended, and were rearrested and reincarcerated. And, he said, in the first two months of realignment, the county has seen 74 inmates come into jail custody, a slightly higher number than expected. "We still don't know what the full impact of AB 109 will be," he said. "It may be even greater than expected." "This is a planned approach to deal with this increase in need in comparison to a reactive approach," he said, noting that in the first month of realignment, 21 of 40 inmates had long-term medical and mental-health issues. The new 376-bed North County jail on the southwest corner of Black and Betteravia roads would include 16 mental-health beds and 16 medical beds, along with an expanded correctional treatment center. It would be designed to be expandable, and have housing units that could be used for either direct or indirect supervision of the incarcerated inmates. The facility would be approximately 138,385 square feet, and if the design began as soon as the county received notice of conditional award from the state, construction would begin in May 2015 and be completed in January of 2018. The jail would cost an estimated $95.1 million to build, and the county would be responsible for $15.1 million. Of that, the $5.7 million cost of the of the land has already been met, leaving the county contribution at $9.4 million, or 15.9 percent. Read More. "target="_new">Read More. |
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