Franklin BOC Votes To Move Forward on Jail Expansion Project

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

Two of four proposed jail pods for the Franklin County Detention Center could be under construction by spring of 2015.

At their regular meeting Monday evening, the Board of Commissioners voted to begin work on the design plan and cost of the project.

The original plan calls for four jail pods with a total of 96 beds to house non-violent and female inmates at a projected cost of $2.4 million.

But after a year of talks and various funding options discussed, the commission was no closer to making a decision until recently, when the Franklin County Grand Jury again urged the county to quickly move forward with the project.

On Monday, Commissioner David Strickland motioned the board consider building half of the project now as discussed in their work session last week.

“I just think maybe we can do a portion of it now and allow us to take the load off of housing out inmates,” Strickland said. “Then we could borrow up to $600,000 then, what our  note would cost us is basically just a little more than what we’ve been averaging out over the last eight years.”

Commissioner Jeff Jacques followed by agreeing with the proposed plan which would use $870,000 already set aside from a previous SPLOST for jail improvements and borrowing another $500,000 to come up with the $1.5 million needed.

“I think the plan and design that we currently have with the four-pod scenario could be easily reduced to a two-pod scenario,” Jacques said. “I know that the initial conceptual estimate for that would have been about $2.5 million. When you break that down into the contingency, the utilities and site preparation and reduce the scope of that work, I think you’re going to find that you’re probably going to be looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.3 – $1.4 million.”

Jacques qualified his suggestion, however, by making sure the county puts a cap on spending and has an agreed upon design plan in place before putting it out to bid.

County manager John Phillips said he would use a similar approach to this project as the county uses for bidding out road projects.

“I think we could a very similar approach as on our road projects,” he said. “I think we could bid that inclusive and then have the option if we decided it was better to use our forces, we could delete that portion of the contract and do some of that work with our own staff.”

Commission chair Thomas Bridges then suggested the board be ready to put it out to bid by their November meeting with more discussion at their October work session later this month.

Afterwards, Franklin County Sheriff Stevie Thomas said he is glad to see the board finally taking action.

“I’m definitely in favor of getting started,” Thomas said. “We’ve got to have some relief. And I understand the burden on the taxpayer, but I didn’t ask for the jail, the jail came along with the job.  Sorry, we can’t get a better clientele. The inmates are ordered there from court for crimes they allegedly committed.  I can’t stop that. The last couple of years it’s really been a boomer, but it’s all over the State that way now.”

If the design plan and funding is approved, the county hopes to break ground in the Spring of 2015 with a completion date in late 2015 or early 2016.