NW city weighing closure of lockup

SPRINGDALE — Officials want to close the city’s jail, hoping misdemeanor inmates housed there will be taken in by the Washington County jail.

“We’re looking to get out of the jail business,” said Melissa Reeves, public relations director for Springdale.

The city plans to build a justice complex, which will house the Police Department.

The design phase has started. City leaders hope to pay for the complex with a 2018 bond issue.

The general obligation bond also would pay for renovation of the City Administration Building, where the Police Department and jail are located now. The building inspection office, which is a

block south of the administration building, and the community engagement office across the street from the administration building would move into the renovated space.

Wyman Morgan, city administrative and financial services director, estimates Springdale residents will be asked to vote on the bond issue in February or March. The complex and renovation will be among many projects in the bond issue, which also will likely include a new animal shelter, two new fire stations, a northwest park and road improvement, Morgan said.

“Right now, we’re estimating we can fund $140 million worth of projects,” Morgan said.

The general obligation bond would be repaid with revenue from a 1 percent sales tax levied for the first time in 2004, Morgan said. A vote for the bond would be a vote to continue the tax.

“That tax was levied as a bond issue to fund $105 million in road improvements,” he said.

Washington County Chief Deputy Jay Cantrell said the sheriff’s office has talked with Police Department officials about taking Springdale’s inmates. Springdale officials began the discussion, he said.

“For several years now they’ve hinted around that they’d like to get out of the jail business. They’re the only jail in Washington County aside from ours,” Cantrell said. “We told them, ‘Logistically, we probably can’t absorb your jail with our current manpower and facility’s layout.’”

A Washington County Quorum Court committee recently discussed the need to expand the county jail.

Sheriff Tim Helder said during the meeting that closing the Springdale jail could be an opportunity for the county and cities to work together to find other ways to pay for the county jail.

The Springdale jail holds inmates booked on misdemeanor charges. Those who face felony charges go to the county jail.

The city jail has 12 beds and averages eight inmates at any given time, Lt. Jeff Taylor with the Police Department said.

The jail is a short-term facility, which means inmates can be incarcerated up to 60 days from the time of intake, according to Sterling Penix, director of jail standards for the Arkansas Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee.

The review committee found that the city jail didn’t comply with two state standards in 2015 or 2016. It didn’t have an outdoor exercise area or an indoor activity area. The committee found the lack of an outdoor exercise area deprived inmates of natural light, which the jail is required to provide.

The detoxification room has been used as an indoor activity room for the past two to three months, Taylor said. An outdoor exercise area was built and has been used for a couple of weeks, he said.

Nine jailers work in the city jail, and they aren’t police officers, Taylor said.

“If the jail is closed, we will still have a booking facility, and the current jailers will transition to a transport officer position,” Taylor said.

The city pays its jailers a combined $225,000 in base

salaries and spends $12,000 on jail supplies, which include uniforms, mattresses, blankets and repair costs. The jail doesn’t pay for food for the inmates, which is supplied by the state. The city pays three employees who monitor community service workers a combined $87,000 in base salaries, Police Chief Mike Peters said.

More money will be needed for the county’s jail to accommodate all the Springdale arrests, Cantrell said.

It will cost at least $20 million to expand the jail, which might mean asking voters for a sales tax increase, Helder said at the meeting.

The county jail has 710 beds and space is tight, Cantrell said.

“We start getting pretty cramped at 630 inmates, and we’re running at 600, so we’re feeling the strains,” he said.

Conditions become cramped even though not every bed is filled because inmates with different classifications have to be housed apart from one another, such as pretrial inmates from convicted inmates, misdemeanor inmates from felony inmates, and women from men.

“We might have a 24-bed cell with 20 people in it because only 20 people fit that classification,” Cantrell said.