County jail committee updates commissioners

By BRITTANY FHOLER 

Cove Leader-Press 

The Coryell County Commissioners Court heard an update from members of the Jail Committee during the commissioners’ meeting held Tuesday morning. 

In a previous meeting, commissioners had voted to form two committees for the building of a new jail facility and a law enforcement center, with Commissioners Ray Ashby and Kyle Matthews on the jail committee with Sheriff Scott Williams and Commissioners Daren Moore and Don Jones on the law enforcement center committee along with Chief Deputy Mark Wilcox. 

In a phone call with the Leader-Press prior to Tuesday’s meeting, Ashby shared that the committee had met with the architect firm and engineers and that they had a presentation put together for the October 28 meeting, with the possibility of the commissioners moving forward to get started on the building process. 

“The new jail is a long time coming,” Ashby said. 

He added that the goal is to “be digging dirt” by January. After breaking ground, it would take about 12 to 13 months to finish construction and three to five months to “occupy and certify,” he said. 

The architect firm has already drawn up plans from 2012, when the process for a new jail was started and ended up stalling. Those design plans included administrative space plus bed space for the bond of $18.7 million. 

“Of course now in today’s building time, we wanted to get as many beds as we could, so we eliminated the administrative part and just are going to concentrate on building just a jail, so that added more beds for the same money,” Ashby said, adding that the firm was confident that the facility would come in under that $18.7 million price. 

The committee also met with infrastructure engineers regarding tying the sewer and water system into the jail, he said. The system needs to be large enough for a 250-bed capacity jail. The committee is waiting on the results of a study to determine the feasibility of this, which Ashby said was expected to be completed by the 28th in time for a presentation. 

“The important thing is that we’re moving forward,” Ashby said. “We’re not in limbo anymore.”

The design plans cover a 214-bed facility, with the possibility of a 48-bed addition, using a pod system. Ashby said he would like to find a way to finance the addition at the same time as the 214 bed facility. 

Currently, Coryell County houses about 80 prisoners out of county, in Milam, Limestone, Burnet and McLennan County, for about $1.3 million, with that cost estimated to rise to $1.5 million. 

“The faster we can get this built, you know, we’ll save this money right off the bat, because we won’t have to house prisoners anymore,” Ashby said, adding that Coryell County will also be able to house prisoners from other counties. 

During Tuesday’s meeting, the other members of the jail committee spoke up during an update. 

Matthews shared that the committee also met with the Gatesville city manager and the engineering department with TDC about sewer lines. He said that the two entities could not decide who the sewer lines belong to. The committee is still waiting on a few things before any more discussion on that subject can continue, he added. 

Regarding the plans for the jail, Matthews said he asked for an estimate for a 500-bed facility. The plans already include the infrastructure for a 500-bed facility as far as the kitchen and laundry areas go. 

County Judge Roger Miller shared that he talked with a different architect firm about pricing. Waller County is building a 217-bed facility for $23.6 million; Robertson County is building a 92-bed facility for $19.5 million and Tom Green County is building a 500-bed facility for $70 million, he said. 

“My conclusions are that I think we’re a little bit low on our building estimates,” Miller said. He added that he didn’t know whether those facilities included administrative space, which would drive up the cost. 

Miller asked the committee about the cost per square foot for building the jail. He also asked about whether 214 beds would be enough for the county’s needs. 

The county had requested a new needs analysis from the Texas Jail Standards Commission previously, which Williams said his office still had not received. 

Regarding staffing, Sheriff Williams shared that Coryell County “way exceeds the need as far as the staffing.”

The Texas Commission Jailing Standards requires one jailer per 48 inmates. Currently, Coryell County averages 5 people per shift, including the supervisors, according to Williams. 

“We are staffed that way because of the way this particular building is constructed, number one, and number two, we’re staffed that way because we have upwards of 80 inmates that are housed out of county,” Williams said. “My people are having to hump those inmates back and forth, so to make sure that we stay within that standard of 1:48, we have these extra people.”

To accommodate the larger facility, Williams said his department would just need two more people per shift, to provide an adequate amount of people to staff the facility plus allow for days off to help with the comp time accrual. 

“I mean, right now, we’re doing the work for a 500 bed facility, is what we’re doing, with all of the shipping and receiving that we do daily, and I don’t have enough people for that right now and I have too many people for the standard, so we need to really entertain moving forward on this project,” Williams said. 

County Attorney Brandon Belt advised the commissioners to enter into a current contract with DRG before continuing discussions, saying he disagreed that the contract previously done in conjunction with the USDA grant was still valid. There is currently no contract in place where the county can pay them or they can submit a bill to the county, he said. 

Belt also revealed that no one had told him to draft or submit the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for engineer firms for the jail and law enforcement center, as previously approved during the Commissioners Court meeting on September 23, so the RFQ had not been sent out. The Commissioners then directed Belt to draft the RFQ for engineer firms for both the jail and law enforcement center.