Bonner Officials Hope To Try Again For New Jail Committee Looks At Cost-Cutting Measures After Two Narrow Defeats

Bonner County wants to try again to build a new jail to replace its 87-year-old facility that is overcrowded and costly to maintain.

Three times in the past four years, the county has asked voters for $5 million to pay for a new jail. Two of the levies gained 65 percent voter approval, just short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to pass such levies.

Now, a new jail committee has been formed and the 12 members think they can come up with an affordable design for a May vote.

“I’m glad to see it back on the drawing board because the problem hasn’t gone away,” said Bonner County Sheriff Chip Roos. “The new jail committee is getting a good whiff of what a big problem this really is. They know we are sitting at a dead end down here.”

The existing jail has been plagued with problems. Six years ago several inmates successfully sued the county because of poor jail conditions. The lawsuit also forced the county to reduce the number of inmates it holds from 29 to 15.

On average, the county has about 50 inmates a day it must house. The extra prisoners are hauled to other jails with vacant space.

Some are transported as far away as Idaho Falls, a 10-hour drive. The county pays the other facilities up to $45 a day per inmate. Last year, that cost the county nearly $700,000 out of its $1 million jail operations budget.

“It’s not even debatable that we need a new jail,” said jail committee chairman Jacque Schremser. “We are wasting money.”

The committee has reviewed past jail designs and had an architect revamp some of the drawings. But the group hasn’t settled on a final design and is considering a 70- to 100-bed facility.

“What we have done is take out all the bells and whistles,” Schremser said. “We are keeping the taxpayers in mind, but we don’t want to go out and build a jail that can’t be expanded or that won’t have room to accommodate all the prisoners.”

The committee discovered much of what is needed in a new jail is required by federal law, and cost-cutting options are minimal.

The county already owns land near the fairgrounds, northeast of Sandpoint, where the new jail would be built.

The county and jail committee will have open meetings every Thursday at 5 p.m. at the courthouse to discuss the new jail. Schremser said the final design needs to come together quickly so the public has time to review it before a May vote.

If voters do approve a new jail, it will take at least 18 months to complete.

, DataTimes