County Executive Joe Parisi announced yesterday that the final expected cost to build a new Dane County Jail is around $179 million dollars. That comes as the Dane County Jail continues to send jail residents to other county jails across the state, which is expected to cost the county around $1.3 million dollars this year.
The current jail, primarily located above the City-County Building in downtown Madison, was first built in 1953, and contains no medical or mental health beds. Current conditions in the jail are such that Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett has called it inhumane, unsafe, and borderline unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, the cost of building a new jail has risen with inflation. Facing climbing numbers, the Dane County Board has held off on finalizing plans until consultants could provide an updated estimate.
Now that estimate is in. While most of the funding has already been approved, the county board is about $13 million short. And they’ve been reluctant to approve more borrowing to complete the project.
But a new resolution could allow the jail project to continue without having to authorize more borrowing. Here’s Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett.
“Resolution 287 was able to obtain additional funds that were unused on other projects, that can now be reallocated and put towards this project without borrowing additional funds,” Sheriff Barrett says.
That resolution would move around $13.5 million dollars from other already completed projects that came in under budget, largely from upgrades to the Dane County Airport. Because the county has already authorized that funding in their budget, this resolution would let them simply move that funding over to the jail project.
County Executive Joe Parisi says that this would create an easy path forward.
“It’s not like looking at a project and saying ‘we aren’t going to do this, we’re going to move it over to the jail instead,’” Parisi says. “This is borrowing that has previously been approved, because borrowing has to be approved and set aside, but sometimes projects come in over budget, sometimes they come in under (budget). There were a number of projects that came in under, and that’s where these funds are from.”
The resolution to move funding to the Dane County Jail heads to a joint committee meeting in about two weeks, on April 10.
Board President Patrick Miles says that, if passed in committee, the resolution would head to the full board for a final vote on April 20. As a budget amendment, it would need a two-thirds majority to pass.
If passed by the board, Executive Parisi says that bids for contractors to actually construct the jail should be back to the county by the end of summer, and construction of the jail can begin.
While the final funding for the new Dane County Jail may finally be within reach, the county continues to spend around $100,000 every month to hold jail residents in other county jails.
Last fall, Sheriff Barrett abruptly closed a portion of the Dane County Jail, and began to send jail residents to other county jails across the state. Barrett says that this is a direct result of continuing to operate the current Dane County Jail.
“The average daily is anywhere from 45-55 that are being housed in other locations and safety purposes , but also to make sure they are in safer facilities that are more properly staffed,” Barrett says.
That was done without the explicit consent of the Dane County Board, and without an official contract with the counties they sent residents to. Fearing of what might happen if something happened to a Dane County Jail resident in the care of another county jail, the board officially authorized a contract with Iowa, Rock, and Oneida county jails earlier this month.
Currently, there are 49 Dane County Jail residents being housed outside of Dane County, which the sheriff’s office says is about average. The county pays those outside jails $60 per day, per resident, to be housed in other county jails. That’s about $3,000 dollars every day to house residents in what Barrett says are safer conditions.
That three thousand a day adds up to about $100,000 dollars every month. The county has budgeted around $1.3 million dollars to house jail residents out of county for 2023.
Photo courtesy: Nate Wegehaupt / WORT News Team