After years of off-and-on discussion, the Platte County Commission has placed a half-cent sales tax to fund construction of a new jail facility on the Tuesday, April 2 election ballot.
At the Tuesday, Jan. 22 commission administrative session, commissioners made the case for the tax, which if approved would run for six and one-quarter years and raise an estimated $65,625,000. Use taxes generated through the tax would be directed to capital improvements as well. Previously, use tax funds from sales taxes were placed in the county’s general fund.
Tuesday was the deadline to place a ballot measure on the April ballot, and county officials rushed the paperwork to the Platte County Board of Elections after the meeting.
During the more than one hour meeting – at which local television media were present – presiding commission Ron Schieber gave his opinions on why jail populations are rising and commissioners heard from the sheriff, prosecutor and former presiding commissioner candidate David Park.
“I did not think we would end up where we are today, but I’m very supportive of where we are today based on the facts,” Schieber said.
Sheriff Mark Owen said he has supported construction of a new jail facility since he took office in 2012. Population predictions in a previous jail study were largely discredited by a citizen committee, but Owen said some of the projections in that study are now in line with current predictions.
Additionally, building costs were lower when the new jail was proposed in 2013. At the time, a 315-bed facility could have been built for about $21 million. Last August, an updated cost estimate for a 330-bed facility was estimated at $43 million.
“If we wait another two years, it could be $65 million,” Owen said.
Rising costs aren’t the only concern, as the rising detention population and the legal obligation to keep prisoners segregated under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) makes figuring out where to keep prisoners more complicated.
Owen said as of Tuesday morning the 180-bed facility had 171 inmates, 23 of whom were sleeping in “boats” on the floor due to separation requirements.
As approved, the ballot language for the proposal reads: “Shall Platte County, Missouri impose a countywide sales tax at the rate of one half of one percent for a period of six and a quarter years from the date on which such tax is first imposed for the purpose of capital improvements, including without limitation the construction of a jail expansion and improvements to the existing jail and other county facilities?”
Schieber said this ballot measure would fund immediate needs for more beds, although the final form of any jail expansion project has yet to be determined. A roughly 192-bed facility with room for expansion is initially planned. Commissioners still plan to seek an additional tax to fund long-term law enforcement needs, including salary increases for deputies.
During his statement, Schieber gave his opinion on why jail populations were rising, and he said he believed it had little to do with the sheriff, prosecutor or court system.
Schieber said instead the problem is cultural, as many who find themselves on the wrong side of the law come from single-parent families and are raised and live in poverty.
“We have a cultural issue going on within our country and within our state that is causing this and we need to try to address that,” Schieber said. “I don’t think operationally we’re going to see prison populations going down with operational changes. We’re going to see it with cultural changes. That means fathers being in the home, that means the church getting involved with families in tough situations, that means communities picking up the slack and mentoring young men who end up in our prisons, who are growing up in a situation where just by their burden they are highly likely to end up in prison.
“It’s a sad situation and I am passionate that it can be fixed, but it’s going to take more than a county commission. It’s going to take prayer from our community, it’s going to take prayer from our churches, it’s going to take people doing what communities used to do and that is taking care of our own.”
The complications of the proposal – and any future proposals – were also addressed.
Pending litigation involving the Zona Rosa parking garage debt payments were briefly discussed, with commissioners stating the plan is to fund the new jail facility entirely through the sales tax without seeking bonds.
Under current Missouri law, first class non-chartered counties cannot issue bonds funded through sales taxes, Schieber said. The commissioners are working with legislators to address this and hope to see a change in law that would give the county more flexibility.