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| Taxes May Rise for Jail Addition |
| By The Wichita Eagle |
| Published: 12/05/2005 |
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Kansas's Sedgwick County property taxes could go up by as much as 6 mills -- or about $70 a year per $100,000 of appraised value -- next year to pay for an expansion of the crowded county jail. County Commissioners voted unanimously last week to go ahead with a plan to build a $48 million, 384-bed addition. In a second phase of the plan, commissioners will consider alternative sentences for offenders and mentally ill inmates. "If we do nothing, we will be 600 beds short five years from now," County Manager Bill Buchanan said. "We are running out of creative solutions." The jail has been filled to capacity for the past six years. County officials tried expanding the work release program. They bought bunk beds. And they keep nearly 200 inmates in jails outside of Sedgwick County. But the incarceration rate continues to climb faster than the national average. The county's 21-member Criminal Justice Coordinating Council thinks the only way to brace for a projected doubling of the jail population in the next 15 years is to add jail space and alternative programs. The jail expansion, which would be completed in 2009, would cost an estimated $7.3 million a year to operate. Commissioners can still halt the expansion. And additional court fees and cuts to existing county programs could trim the amount passed on to taxpayers. But commissioners agree a tax increase is inevitable. Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed attributes the rise in jail population to longer stays. He said new state laws that require the county jail to hold people who commit low-level felonies such as third-offense DUIs have led to crowding at the jail. A jail study conducted by Sedgwick County and Wichita State University showed that hundreds of inmates have mental health problems that could be dealt with more effectively outside of jail. Delores Craig-Moreland, an associate professor of criminal justice at WSU who worked on the study, said alternative programs can stabilize the inmate population. "Throughout the United States, jails have been finding that they can avoid growth in the size of their structures if they can start using alternatives," she said. "Right now some people wind up getting booked into jail for the most minor infractions because it's a way to get them off the street. I don't think the police really want to do that, but they're kind of stuck in the middle because they have to deal with them in some way." Craig-Moreland said that over a 10-year period, average population at the juvenile detention facility has stabilized using alternative programs. "I can only say if we can do it with the kids, there's no reason to say we can't do that with the adults." |
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