JAIL FUNDING - Progress report

The preliminary numbers are in on year-to-date county revenue as of October 31st and the good news is that, because of responsible spending, we are projecting around a 2.6 million dollar carryover into 2008. This represents almost a 7.6 million dollar budget turnaround from projections in January of 2007.

Of course your first question is: how does this affect our county jail? We have two areas of funding concern with the jail. The first is the capital improvements like the roof. The other area is the ongoing expense related to paying for new jailers and other operational expenses. Certainly the carryover can be used to fund capital improvements. Using this money for operational expenses will require a change in county law.

Not to despair! One of my next orders of business as your county budget
chairman will be to pass an ordinance that allows us to utilize a portion of
the carryover funds for public safety, which will allow us to return our jail to
2005 capacity of 1130 prisoners instead of the currently funded capacity of
880 beds. This is a huge step towards locking up more prisoners and keeping them off the streets and away from our property.

Many of you have asked me about the county treasurers donation program
called First Step which to date has raised over $16,000. As your budget
committee chairman, I continue to make funding the jail a top budget
priority in our budget process. We are committed to finding the money to
not only put a new roof on the existing jail, but to insure that funds are
available to pay jailers and support staff to keep criminals off the street.

We have started the process of reopening the closed portion of the jail.
Engineers are currently preparing the report, which will allow us to move
forward. I look forward to providing you additional updates.

Allen Kerr