County to lease prison

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August 4, 2010

222-bed facility offers better security than CCCI

Alan Mauldin The Moultrie Observer The Moultrie Observer Wed Aug 04, 2010, 11:43 PM EDT

MOULTRIE — Colquitt County Commission approved Tuesday a 20-year lease agreement on a recently closed state correctional facility to replace its aging county prison.

Commissioners voted unanimously to enter into the lease under which the county will pay $25,050 per year for use of the facility at Spence Field. The Georgia Department of Corrections closed the Southwest Probation Center in May.

The decision to lease the 222-bed facility to replace the current facility that dates to the 1950s makes sense economically, Commissioner Johnny Hardin said during a telephone interview Wednesday.

“(Commissioner) Luke (Strong) brought it up last night about the estimate, $6.5 million to build a new one,” Hardin said. “We still wouldn’t have but $1 million that’s there right now, and you don’t know if voters will approve another sales tax for a prison.”

The county has about $1 million earmarked in the current special purpose local option sales tax for prison improvements or replacement. That money can be used for needed repairs and the addition of holding cells at the state facility but likely will not be used toward making lease payments.

“If you had to build one (prison) you’d pay more than $25,000 a year in interest,” Hardin said. “I just think that for that amount of money, for the taxpayers benefit, if we’re going to have prisoners down the road we’re going to save a lot of money leasing that.”

Prison Warden Billy Howell said Wednesday that the detention center facility also offers enhanced security that is not available at the current county correctional facility. Correctional officers will be able to view inmates in living quarters in a control room, and when officers go into those areas they can be monitored by others.

The current prison “is just a security nightmare,” he said. “I’ve said that before. Out there it will be a lot easier to monitor inmates.”

Howell said that the new facility can be opened with the same 15 certified correctional officers currently on staff. Depending on how it works out, there could be a need for one or two additional officers.

The state pays the county $20 per inmate per day, which amounts to about $1.2 million per year, and the county gets the benefit of about 100 laborers per day.

Even if an increase in personnel is needed to operate the leased facility, it would still be a bargain for the county, Hardin said.

“If we were to close the inmates down and had to turn around and hire enough employees to do that work, that would be $1.5 to $2 million,” he said.

Some additional issues other than the renovations and addition have to be worked out related to the move. One is food preparation, which currently is done by prison inmates for that facility and the adjacent Colquitt County Jail.

Other planning also will be necessary, as will training for correctional officers, Howell said.

“We’ll have to have a transition time in there,” Howell said.

Another issue raised Tuesday by Sheriff Al Whittington was the need for room to expand the jail itself.

The jail has a maximum of 160 beds and is routinely housing up to 155 inmates, he said during a telephone interview Wednesday. Part of that is about 30 to 32 inmates awaiting transfer to state facilities and a growing number of inmates jailed on probation violations.

“That could be the economy,” he said. “They may not have enough money to pay their fines.”

The majority, however, are inmates in the jail on drug charges, Whittington said.

“It’s certainly something -- if they could use it in the decision-making process -- we’re going to need another pod in 10 to 15 years,” he said.

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