Greene County’s jail project had initially included plans to construct administration offices, as well. This aspect of the project was scrapped late last year as inflation soared. Now, Sheriff Scott Anger said the county can reconsider.
“Our offices are currently in a 29-year-old former car dealership,” Anger said Friday. “Our people do an important job and they deserve better facilities than what we have. When we’re telling people we want them to come work for us, being able to show them that they’ll be able to work in a good environment is crucial.”
Anger said the county hopes to break ground this year.
The plan moving forward has been to replace the existing jail by adding more than 76,000 square feet to the Greene County Adult Detention Center on Greeneway Boulevard. It will add 250 beds and repurpose 232 existing beds for recovery services and mental health counseling programs. The Adult Detention Center is currently used for minimum-security offenders.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
The Greene County jail project has been years in the making, as officials have long wanted to replace their aging jail on Market Street. Built in 1969, the facility has been under a consent decree since 1989, which limits the jail population due to the decrepit state of the building.
Along with the deteriorating state of the jail, officials noted it does not allow for much-needed programming that focuses on rehabilitation and the mental health of inmates.
“Most of the people who are in our county jail are coming back out into society … and it’s important that we try to help them and deal with the mental health problems they may face, the addiction problem they may face, while we’ve got them here,” DeWine said. “That costs money and also means that the jail has to be designed so that you can in fact deliver those services.”
The estimated project cost in Greene County is $61 million, half of which is slated to come from $30 million in sales tax-funded bonds, issued last April. Just over $10 million was planned to come from revenue replacement from the American Rescue Plan Act, and the remaining $20 million is intended to come from the county’s cash reserves.
Nearly a dozen jails in Ohio will get a combined $50 million in funding for construction, renovation, and security improvement projects in this, the second round of Jail Safety and Security Grant funding.
“Jails are expensive, and we don’t like them to be, but the reality is when you house people, it certainly costs money to do it,” DeWine said Friday. “We’re not paying the whole cost … but the counties need some help and we want to give them the help based upon what their need is.”
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