After months of discussion, the DeKalb County Commissioners have committed to purchase property on Smith Road to construct a new jail.
The commission will purchase an estimated 71.5 acres. The final cost will not exceed $1.8 million. Core drilling results are also pending. Jail Committee Chairman Larry Green said Smith Road was the best option.
“It lays the best of any land that we had seen,” Green said. “It had the adequate facilities that we needed out there. Had the utilities, had everything except three-phase power, and Smithville Electric said they can run three-phase power to it without a lot of cost.”
The county commission also approved to take on two 12-year loans to pay for the property and the estimated $35 million price tag for the construction of the jail.
Green said the next step for the jail is the design phase. Green said a bed count for the jail has not been decided yet. Green said
“TCI, the architect, the county sheriff, and the commission will all work out the final design of exactly what they need,” Green said. “Once that is worked out the architect will draw up all of the blueprints and those will be sent out then to be bid out competitively.”
Green said the county decided on a 12-year loan compared to a 20-year or a 30-year loan to reduce the amount of interest that would be owed. Green said he believes a tax increase will not be necessary to pay for the loans.
“Actually, with this, we’ll probably be able to lower our property tax rate just a little bit,” Green said. “It will be really close to where it was last year, and that has yet to be determined by the budget committee. One reason we had to do that work last night is so the budget committee can then go back and look at the budget and set a property tax recommendation to the commission.”
Green said he believes the county commission took a major step Monday. Green said it feels good to finally have a site picked out.
“We’ve known about the existence of issues since 2019, and then of course, everybody knows covid hit and that kind of took the issue off the burner, so to speak,” Green said. “Because that pretty much emptied out the jails and didn’t need it at that time, but since covid has ended, the need has just come right back at us. So the prior commission knew there was an issue there, but with covid they didn’t have to do anything about it, so this commission got stuck with having to do something about it.”
Green said he is hoping to see a jail being built soon, as the county is still paying other counties to take inmates. Green said the county is months away from being at the point to bid out the construction of the jail.
