Council hears options for jail funding

The Dubois County Council agreed to how funds for the community justice center project will be disbursed during their meeting Monday evening.

Commissioner Chad Blessinger spoke with the council on the progress of planning the jail and community corrections expansion as well as introduced a revised schematic for a new building housing the courts and other offices in the county’s justice system.

The plans were accompanied with a request for the county to commit to additional funding to cover the cost of the building that may not be covered by the special Local Income Tax – Corrections and Rehabilitation (CnR) put in place to cover the cost of the new jail and community corrections expansion. That income tax — an additional .2 percent income tax — can only be used to pay for corrections and rehabilitation services. The administrative offices and courts although part of the justice system could be considered outside the scope of use for the new tax.

The council has been told by their bond counsel and local counsel that the special tax funds would likely not be allowed for the new building. Therefore, the county will have to pay for the new building from other sources like current funds in the EDIT, now called LIT, account and the county’s rainy day fund.

Councilman Mike Kluesner said state legislators are working to clarify the law that went into effect last year to better define how the CnR money can be used. “They said they are expecting that in a month or so,” he said.

Blessinger told the council he had spoken with the RQAW architects to determine what can be done with the correctional and rehabilitation tax funding. RQAW architects told him that their experience in other counties has been that anything that goes into the justice building can be paid for with the funds.

“It’s easy to say that probation is a rehabilitative service. The courts have rehabilitative services,” Blessinger said.

But Blessinger then pointed out the architectural firm had mentioned they could adjust the firm’s billing structure.

“He (designer) said even with his design fees, he said, ‘I can charge you a whole lot of money on design fees for the jail and almost none for this building,'” Blessinger told the council. “You know there’s ways to make it work … I don’t think we’re going to have a problem with splitting the CnR (corrections and rehabilitation) money from the cash.”

Blessinger told the council that with updated cost structures that reduced the amount set aside for contingencies and reduced the sizes of the additions to community corrections and the jail in addition to other design changes, the estimate was about $41 million. This number presented by Blessinger represents enough to pay for the jail, community corrections, justice center and allows for about $300,000 for renovations to the historic courthouse.

That amount would be broken up with a $29.4 million bond (although interest on the bond payments was not included in the $41 million cost), $5.4 million collected through the new income tax at the time of the bond, and an additional $7 million in the form of current money on hand as well as future income from EDIT.

After the bond is issued, the county will use the CnR tax to pay it off. That tax has an expiration after 20 years and the total income from the .2 percent income tax is expected to be about $54 million over that time period.

The council agreed to use a two million dollars over two years of incoming local income tax (LIT); a million from the rainy day fund; and four million from the current LIT fund. (LIT is the new acronym used for what was formerly known as EDIT or economic development income tax).

They will vote on that formally by the end of March.

The new building will house the two courts, probation offices, clerks offices, small claims, the prosecuting attorney’s office, and child support offices. Along with moving these offices into a single building, the building will be attached to the jail with a secure walkway designed to protect inmates as well as security center personnel and the public.

As part of a suggestion from a study conducted by the University of Cincinnati, Blessinger said a new public defender’s office could also be established in the new building. Also, additional space for attorney-client conferences and jury rooms will be included.

Once these offices move into the new building, the offices in the county annex building — county coroner, county surveyor, weights and measures, county commissioners chambers and council chambers — could be moved into the old courthouse. Blessinger suggested the county could sell the annex building except for the Veteran Affairs office which he felt was in a good location because of the ground floor level that allowed for easy wheelchair accessibility.