The Facts about the Proposed

Dent County Jail

Safety Safety SecuritySecurity

Liability ProtectionLiability Protection

If you have more questions please contact one of your Dent County Commissioners:

Darrell Skiles Dennis Purcell Gary Larson

Or

Dent County Sheriff Bob Wells

Q. Will local investors be allowed to purchase the lease certificates of participation?

A. Yes, the County’s municipal bond underwriter, L.J. Hart & Company of St. Louis, Missouri will make these certificates available to local individ-uals and banks within Dent County exclusively for ten days to two weeks prior to selling them to others. The certificates will be sold in $5,000 denominations.

Q. What is the deadline to register to vote?

A. Anyone desiring to register to vote in the April 4, 2017 election must register to vote by March 8, 2017. You can register at the County Clerk’s office. Every registered voter in Dent County is eligible to vote on this issue.

Q. Can I vote by absentee ballot?

A. If you are unable to go to the polls on Election Day, you may vote by absentee ballot. The first day to vote an absentee ballot is February 21, 2017 and the last day is April 3, 2017, the day prior to the election. You can vote in the County Clerk’s office or by mail. If you have any ques-tions concerning the registration or the absentee voting process, please call the County Clerk’s office at 573-729-4144.

Q. How many votes are required for approval of the ½ Cent Sales Taxes?

A. To pass the two proposals, it is necessary that they each receive a simple majority of all the votes cast on April 4, 2017.

How will the new jail benefit us? A. 1. Decreased Liability Risk: By meeting mini-

mum ACA standards, the new jail will help pro-tect the County from lawsuits for failing to pro-vide humane jail housing for prisoners. 2. Increased Public Safety: The new Jail will be more secure, reducing the danger of escapes and assaults on jail officers. 3. Tax dollars will stay at home. The County can keep our tax dollars here at home instead of sending them to other counties. (In 2016 the County spent over $100,000 housing inmates in other counties.) 4. Keeps the facility downtown: This will keep staff downtown, providing continued economic support for downtown businesses. 5. Project cost savings. The County already owns the property.

Q. How much will the jail cost? Is this the en-tire project cost?

A. Construction costs currently are favorable; how-ever this is not expected to last as the recovery progresses. The estimated Project Cost for the Jail only is $11,015,110. This will include eve-rything; construction, professional fees, furni-ture, locks, cameras, security systems, door con-trols & detention equipment.

This is a median cost of national averages, and our architect has a high level of confidence that it is conservative based on recent bids of similar size facilities.

Q. How will we pay for the new facility? A. The Dent County Commission has voted unani-

mously to place two ½¢ sales taxes on the April 4th ballot, to repay lease certificates of partici-pation. One of the taxes will “Sunset” in 21 years. The other ½¢ sales tax will be ongoing to fund increased operating costs of the new jail. This type of funding means that Visitors to Dent County will help pay for our project, since approximately 50% of our sales tax reve-nue comes from visitors to our community.

573-729-3044

573-729-3241

Included above is a picture of a typical jail cell, similar to what is being planned for the new jail. The cell is designed to be clean and secure, rather than comfortable like a hotel room.

Q. What is the current situation? A. The current Sheriff’s Office and Jail is located

in the lower level of the Judicial Building, which was built in 1978. The existing facility makes for an unsafe situation. There is room for 21 inmates; however the inmate population has increased steadily since 2007 and currently has averaged 46+ inmates in 2016, with as many as 60 at one time.

As a result, the county has regularly had to

look for bed space in other counties, which cost the county over $100,000 in 2016.

Q. What is being proposed? A. A new 84-Bed Jail, with ability to expand to

100-beds, located across Iron Street, east of the current Judicial Center. The new jail will conform to modern life safety standards and minimum American Correctional Association (ACA) standards. It will minimize (inmate) movement and maximize (officer) views into inmate housing areas and allow for multiple classification of inmates (violent, non-violent, male, female, pretrial, adjudicated, etc.) im-proving the safety, security and liability risk to all.

Q. How was this direction arrived at? A. The Sheriff formed an advisory committee,

made up of concerned citizens, representing a cross-section of the county, to look at the is-sues and help determine the best solution. This committee has been meeting regularly since November 2014 to ask the hard questions, un-derstand the issues, and share ideas and thoughts.

Q. Why do we need to make jail improve-ments?

A. We are providing a safer work environment for our officers, liability protection for the County, and a more humane detention center than we currently have. The new jail will be made of concrete, block and steel. The average prisoner cell is 75 sf (7’ x 10’-8”) with two steel bunks, a steel combination toilet and sink with a small steel desk and seat permanently attached to the wall. The facility being proposed meets the minimum American Correctional Association (ACA) requirements for jails, and is accepted in Missouri. (See picture on back of this flyer.)

Q. Are there going to be new courtrooms? A. The advisory committee had our architect look

at the entire jail, law enforcement, and judicial system and do an operational analysis of the possible solutions. While there are certainly concerns with courtroom crowding, security and accessibility, it was agreed the primary area of concern was the jail. As a result, the committee recommended to the commission to proceed with the Jail, and if funds allow, law enforcement administrative space and a court-room, but only if bids for the jail come in bet-ter than expected.

Q. How did you come up with the number of

beds needed? A. The County was able to provide Shive-Hattery,

our architect, with Yearly Average Daily Popu-lation (ADP) data for the jail going back to 2004. From that data our architect was able to objectively determine the number of beds Dent County will need for the next 20 years. The final calculations determined that Dent County would need 116-120 beds to accommodate our inmate housing needs, 20 years in the future. Recognizing the financial burden, and that Dent County will likely not experience contin-ued linear growth in inmates, the Commission, Sheriff and Prosecuting Attorney have recom-mended an 84-bed facility that could be easily expanded to 100-beds when necessary.

Q. What happens if the old jail gets shut down?

A. If our current jail were to shut down, we’d have to house all our inmates in surrounding counties, assuming beds are available, at the approximate rate of $45/day/inmate. If we had to house out all our inmates (approx. 47/day in 2016) it would have cost the county $771,975,1 not including gas, manpower and vehicle expense to transport daily for court. This would be Dent County dollars going to other counties, and Dent County would still be liable for inmates housed in their facilities. And, this is only an option as long as other counties have beds available!

1 Based on 2016 ADP provided by the Dent County Sher-iff’s Office; 47 inmates a day at $45/day/inmate.

Q. What will we do with the old building? A. It will remain. If funds are not available for

new law enforcement space, the Sheriff’s of-fice will remain where it is. In that case, some of the jail cells would serve as temporary de-tention for court proceedings and the rest could be used for much needed storage space .

Q. Will there be public forums and other op-

portunities to learn more about this pro-posal prior to the election?

A. Yes, the County Commissioners welcome the citizens to attend their regular County Com-mission meetings each Monday and Thursday from 9:00am to 12:00pm. Other presentations will be made at the various service club meet-ings and other organizations. If you wish to arrange a meeting, please contact the County Commissioners at 573-729-3044.

Tours of the jail are being planned for you to see the unsafe conditions. Please contact the Sheriff’s office at 573-729-3241 to see when tours will be available.

Paid for by Dent County Darrell Skiles, Presiding Commissioner 400 North Main, Salem, Missouri 65560

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