Jail committee considers bonding options

By AMBER DILLEY

GLASGOW — The county continues to inch closer to construction of the new Barren County Correction Center.

Before Tuesday’s fiscal court meeting, the jail committee met with representatives with financing firm Ross, Sinclaire and Associates to discuss two possible bond plans for the project.

The first option is the traditional tax exempt bond, what an entity like a county would normally use to finance a building project.

The second option involves the stimulus funds.

“The Build America bonds allow entities such as yourselves to issue taxable bonds, which would give you a greater pool of investors and possibly a better rate on those bonds,” explained R.J. Palmer, a representative from the firm.

The Build America bonds use stimulus funds where the government rebates the entity on the bond.

“What you do is issue the taxable rate and the federal government gives you a rebate on a percentage of that rate,” Palmer said. “Over the 20-year bond period, that would save the county approximately $457,000. It’s a new tool in our toolbox, so to speak.”

The firm has already implemented the bonds with a client in South Carolina and “the results have been good.”

“It was a very large project and this saved them about $4 million over the life of their bond issue,” Palmer said.

The only hang-up that concerned the magistrates and Judge-Executive Davie Greer was the fact that the county will have to appropriate all of the money into the budget.

“You have to put more debt service money in your budget, but you aren’t paying as much,” Palmer said. “They give you a direct payment back. They want you to be fully covered and I suppose you could make the argument that somewhere down the road, Congress could take this away, but I can’t imagine them doing that.”

Magistrate Carl Dickerson asked if there would be any strings attached to the rebates.

“No, this is part of the stimulus plan,” Palmer said. “If you have federal dollars aside from the rebate, like a grant, you would be subject to the rules on that, but with the rebate, there are no strings.”

The committee and Palmer brought the options to the court, but no decision was made on which to choose.

Meanwhile, the 36-year-old jail that sparked the decision to rebuild is being slowly brought up to date.

Barren County Sheriff’s Deputy and acting jailer Matt Mutter reported to the court that the new computers have been installed and the server will be in soon.

“This was about three years overdue from what the computer company told us,” Mutter said. “This will really speed things up a lot for us.”

Employees have also been working to collect back fees owed to the jail and in June collected about $2,630.

The jail has also started to implement a program through the Immigration Department.

“They put detainers on illegal immigrants when they get arrested for higher-class misdemeanors and felonies,” Mutter said. “So they don’t get released and can get deported back to their country. This is new to us, but is another thing that should have been done a few years ago. They didn’t understand why we haven’t been doing this already because they’re doing it with most of the other jails in the area. But it is something we’re going to get started on.”

The county voted to build a new jail in December after the Kentucky Department of Corrections deemed the current jail unsafe due to the smoke evacuation system not being up to state standards. The system pulls smoke from the building to prevent inhalation in the event of a fire.

The 20-cell maximum security wing failed the smoke test and has since been shut down.

Magistrates have been putting off voting on the issue for a few years and since voting have faced several hurdles involving community backlash, contract and land issues.

The first proposed site was on South Lewis Street, but the residents of that area wasted no time in requesting the county look for another site.

The second area proposed was in IDEA Park, but that plan fell through because the of the money it would cost to prepare the land for construction.

The third attempt worked with the county able to purchase the site at 200 Samson Street for $350,000 last month with no problems as of yet.

The county has agreed to spend up to $10 million for the project, with the price of the property not included in the cost of construction.

The new jail will be based off the plans from the Crittenden County Jail, which opened in early 2008 with 133 beds and a bill of approximately $7.7 million.

The property at 200 Samson Street used to house the old Samson Tobacco Barn and is approximately half a mile from where the current jail sits on Ford Street.