Bulloch County commissioners are poised to act during their 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 6 meeting on either of two resolutions to borrow $60 million through a bond sale to finance an expansion and update of the county jail. Their choice will be between repaying the bonds in 12 years or over the course of 20 years.
No details of the options are provided in the proposed resolutions in the commissioners’ agenda folder materials, which were made publicly available Thursday. But the cover memo for this top “new business” action item states that representatives of the county’s financial advisor firm, Davenport & Company, and also the county’s bond council, Murray Barnes Finister LLC, will be at the meeting to present the options and “make their recommendations regarding the preferred option.”
In either case, the immediate funding source is the 1% Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. An 85.8% majority of Bulloch County voters in a March 18 referendum election approved a six-year extension of the SPLOST. During that time, the penny tax is projected to raise $138 million or more for building projects and capital equipment purchases of the county government and the cities of Statesboro, Brooklet, Portal and Register.
The wording of the referendum and the intergovernmental agreement gave the jail expansion top priority as a joint project serving the county and the municipalities. It is assigned a $51 million share of the revenue up-front, far more than the other “joint and priority project” identified in the agreement, expansion of solid waste disposal capacity, which was earmarked $9.6 million.
If SPLOST revenue within six years surpasses the $138 million predicted amount so that the towns and county get their population-based shares for other projects, additional money beyond the initial $51 million would then be directed to repayment of the jail project bonds. The referendum also authorized borrowing in the form of bonds for the project up to $60 million.
Not all as envisioned
But even at that amount the currently proposed bond issue would not cover all the work that has been suggested for the jail and the Public Safety and Public Works campus it shares with Bulloch County Correctional Institution, or BCCI.
“This will be for Phase 1 of the overall jail expansion, and that includes a total of 288 beds, which is room for additional male and female detainees. …,” interim County Manager Randy Tillman said Thursday. “It will be an additional building that will be connected to the existing by way of a secure corridor.”
The existing jail has bout 466 beds, officially, but capacity is limited by the need to have separate areas for men and women and to segregate gang members or people with mental health issues.
Also the county’s Public Safety Division director and previously warden of BCCI, which is a county-owned facility housing state inmates under contract, Tillman worked with Sheriff Noel Brown and staff members two years ago on a larger plan for the complex. Their concept included the jail expansion, replacement of BCCI’s oldest structure and construction of some facilities, such as the laundry, to be shared by the prison, the jail and a proposed transitional center.
But for now, the county government is moving forward with a phased approach based in a facilities study by the Goodwyn Mills Cawood, or GMC, architectural and consulting firm. As currently proposed, Phase 1 does not include the laundry facility, he said. GMC’s sketch for the layout of Phase 1 construction shows one building with a 160-bed male housing unit and a 128-bed female housing unit, plus an outdoor recreation area and new security fence.
“The next step once we secure the financing will be to go with an actual architect to develop the plans,” Tillman said. “Basically, we just have the building placement and square footage-type details. We don’t have any conceptual art at this point.”
After the financing steps next week, county officials should be able to move quickly toward a timeline for design and construction, he said.
