Franklin facility will house infected prisoners.
Facility refurbished; work paid for by FEMA
Milwaukee County officials will soon open a newly refurbished facility in Franklin that will house county inmates and state prisoners who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Work on the new facility, which will house up to 120 patients, is expected to be completed this week. It is expected to begin accepting inmates and prisoners from around the state as early as Sunday.
So far, the project has cost $6 million — a bill that is being footed entirely by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Federal officials had budgeted $12 million for the construction project.
“We’ll turn over the facility on Wednesday and it will be prepared to receive equipment, staff and patients as necessary,” Col. Aaron Reisinger, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers Chicago District, said this week.
Reisinger said the idea was to remove coronavirus patients from the general inmate population and treat them at the upgraded Frank Lotter building of the Milwaukee County House of Correction in Franklin.
About 30 beds will be set aside for acute care, he said.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, however, made it clear that the inmates will not just come from the county. He labeled it a “regional” facility but then said it will also take patients statewide.
“This facility isn’t necessarily just for House of Correction folks,” Crowley said.
“This is the ability to allow those in our neighboring counties to take particular inmates, to separate them from the general population,” he added. “So we can take care of COVID-19 patients all from across the state of Wisconsin.”
Crowley’s office later confirmed that prisoners from all Department of Corrections institutions can come to the new alternative care facility for treatment.
Milwaukee County made the request to federal officials to set up the treatment facility late last month when the number of inmates with COVID-19 was surging at the House of Correction. The plan was quickly approved by federal officials.
The project was disclosed publicly for the first time Monday, shortly after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began asking about it.
Crowley said the House of Corrections had a total of 109 inmates who had tested positive for the coronavirus when the county petitioned to set up
the treatment facility.
But Superintendent Michael Hafemann, director of the House of Correction, told a County Board committee this week that all of those inmates have since recovered from COVID-19 and no new infections have been found. Hafemann noted that two inmates were hospitalized, but he said both have recovered enough to return to the Franklin facility.
Most of the work renovating the Lotter Building was done by Gilbane Building
Co. over 16 days this month, according to Reisinger. He said the project is being completed ahead of schedule.
“So really what remains at this point is a lot of testing certification, what we call demobilization, and cleanup of the contractors and subcontractors there,” Reisinger said.
Cost of facility to be split
County records indicate that the federal government will pick up 75% of the operating costs for the new facility, with the state chipping in 12.5% and the county taking on the rest.
The House of Correction will oversee the facility, providing all supervision and security. It is working with the Milwaukee County Sheriff ’s Office on staffing rotations.
The opening of the treatment facility comes at a time when the population at the House of Correction has been significantly reduced.
Speaking to the Judiciary, Safety and General Services Committee, Hafeman and Milwaukee County Chief Judge Mary Triggiano said Monday that they’ve cut the number of inmates at the facility from about 1,100 before the crisis to 626.
Those who had been sleeping at the facility but going out on work release have been released, along with nearly 200 inmates who were considered to be low risk.
Twenty-three inmates who have been sentenced to state prison are being housed at the House of Correction because the state has halted new admissions as part of its own effort to stem the introduction and spread of the coronavirus in its prisons.
Hafemann said all House of Correction staff now have adequate protective equipment, including N95 masks, and that more cleaning, including major sanitizing by an outside contractor, has also helped keep the coronavirus at bay. Alison Dirr and Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.