GLASGOW — With differing opinions on the Barren County Fiscal Court, the group is having trouble deciding what needs to be done with the rundown Barren County Correction Center.
During the jail committee meeting Thursday, the committee decided after much discussion that Rodney Ballard, with the Kentucky Department of Corrections, Tracey Moutardier, a jail consultant, and Keith Sharp, who has been helping the court draw up plans and budgets for the jail, will speak at the next fiscal court meeting to help them get closer to a consensus.
Some on the court think it would be OK to build a new jail, some are for patching up the existing one like they have been doing, and some are for allowing the state to close it down altogether.
“The important thing to remember is that this isn’t something that has just happened in the last 30 days,” said Barren County Judge-Executive Davie Greer. “People say we’ve been rushed into it. This has been going on since at least 2004. All of our inspections have failed since then and it’s been ignored.”
Last week, the Kentucky Department of Corrections told fiscal court magistrates a decision needed to be made by Dec. 4 on the smoke evacuation system of the jail, or the state would pull all state inmates out and consider closing down the facility.
Moutardier said during the meeting that as long as the court is working to get something done, the Kentucky Department of Corrections will help them and let them keep the jail open.
During the jail committee meeting, Ballard told the court he had similar problems when he ran a jail.
“I can tell you I’m against patching it up, from experience,” Ballard said. “I ran a jail for 10 years with a physical plant that was a mess. Like this one, our smoke evac system went down and it cost $1.46 million to fix it. From what I’ve seen, the only way to go about this is to gut it and start all over. The pipes have to be replaced, the wiring, the HVAC system, it has to be made (American Disabilities Act) compliant. It’s just one thing after another and it will continue to set you back if you just patch it up.”
When magistrate Carl Dickerson asked if they could build a jail or renovate the newest part of the jail to hold 60 county inmates, Ballard said he didn’t think that was a good idea because they have to factor in growth and the average county inmate numbers are running at around 50.
Barren County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Mutter also noted that while the jail has GPS bracelets available, they have not been used. Mutter has been managing the jail for Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton, who is serving as interim jailer.
“I don’t think it’s feasible to put these on 50 people and use them regularly because when we looked at it before, it would take more than one fulltime deputy to keep a watch on those people,” Mutter said. “We’d have to keep going to check up on them to see why they were where they weren’t supposed to be. I just don’t see it being feasible.”
Ballard described the problems with the jail to having an old vehicle.
“It’s like having a 1970s Chevrolet,” he said. “You fix things that keep breaking and you get to a point when you have to decide how much money are you going to put in that old car before you buy a new one.”
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