By SUSAN TEBBEN
For the Daily Times
GLASGOW —
Bonds for the new Barren County Corrections Center were sold Thursday at a lower rate than expected, according to Judge-Executive Davie Greer.
“[Financial consultant Chip Sutherland of Hilliard Lyons] figured our interest rate very conservatively, but it still came in a lot lower than we thought,” Greer said.
Hilliard Lyons bought all of the bonds at a rate of 3.73 percent, which was based on the county’s 3A financial rating, a rating that the county wasn’t sure they would be able to keep in the current economic environment. When Sutherland presented the 30-year loan plan at the fiscal court meeting Jan. 19, he assumed a higher interest rate of 4.6 percent, and with the winning bid, the total repayment from the county would have been $16,706,691. The lower interest rate will save Barren County an estimated $70,000 per year, Greer said.
“I’m thrilled with it, and I’m so glad everything is starting to get going on this,” she said.
Architects on the project are preparing the contracts for Alliance Corporation, who was awarded the project with a lump sum base bid of $7,519,300. They have given a construction time of exactly one year.
Greer expects “dirt will start moving” sometime in April.
“We’re putting people to work in Barren County, and we didn’t have to lay off, which would have happened if we had just remodeled the current jail,” Greer said. “We would have had to move inmates and bring it up to a new code, so this is so much better than that.”
The new jail facility is planned to be 33,261 square feet with an outdoor recreation space of 3,214 square feet.
The current jail was found to have fire code violations and infrastructure issues when the Kentucky Department of Correction inspected it in 2008. Since then, new smoke alarms have been installed and one maximum security section of the jail was shut down before upgrades were made. The KDC would require major renovations to the existing building in the next year or so. At the March 16 fiscal court meeting, Jailer Matt Mutter reported that repairs to the sewage lines had to be done this month to prevent sewage backing up into the jail.
