County continues to work on jail expansion

BENTONVILLE — Benton County officials say there's a need to expand the jail. But will voters see it that way?

A possible expansion — and how it might be paid for — was a topic of discussion at the Finance Committee meeting of the Quorum Court held Tuesday, April 19.

Justices of the peace toured the jail before the meeting. What they saw were cramped areas throughout — in office space and in various pods where inmates are being held.

The approximately 136,000-square-foot jail has 650 beds but averages more than 700 detainees a day, officials said. Female prisoners are held in a separate 19,829-square-foot pod next to the main jail.

Lt. Shannon Jenkins, the spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Office, said Friday's jail count was 691 detainees. She said 594 are those sentenced to jail commits; holds for other agencies and pretrial.

Jenkins said the jail hasn't held federal inmates since the beginning of the covid pandemic in 2020.

Justice of the Peace Ken Farmer said it had been a few years since he toured the jail. Farmer is a former chief of police for Bella Vista.

“The only thing that surprised me was the crowding,” he said. “The sheriff reports to us frequently about the population, but it doesn't really sink in until you see it in person.”

Justice of the Peace Kurt Moore has toured the jail several times over the years and has the unique perspective of having toured it before it opened in 1999.

The jail seems to be bursting at its seams, he said.

“With so many bored and sometimes desperate people crammed together, something bad is bound to happen eventually,” he said.

Justice of the Peace Susan Anglin has toured the jail three times including Tuesday night.

“With every tour, I always think about what a difficult job — stressful and depressing to me,” Anglin said. “This week, I felt more fearful for the employees and the inmates. Too many humans in a very confined space. It is too crowded for safety, and there is no space for any programs that might help the inmates when they do leave the jail, and that makes the job of the deputies less safe.”

Prosecuting Attorney Nathan Smith said his office opened 1,766 felony cases in 2011 and 2,953 in 2021.

Smith's office is already involved in alternative sentencing with drug and veteran courts, along with diversions and probation. Without sufficient jail space, alternative sentencing won't work, he said.

“Adequate jail space is also important to allow us to put the right people into alternative sentencing programs rather than using those programs to merely relieve space in the jail,” Smith said. “The latter approach would harm the success rate for the folks who need the help the most.”

Sarah Moore with the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition said the group appreciates the intention to help individuals with mental health and recovery needs being posed by a jail expansion in the county. She said the appropriate place for those investments isn't

in the county jail, but in the community.

“Data and research should be the backbone to lead toward solutions for our long-term well-being,” she said. “Findings are clear that even one day spent in jail is detrimental to one's mental and physical health. Individuals recently released from incarceration have a higher likelihood of overdose upon release. We value families, yet a day in jail is enough to cause children to go into DHS care and individuals to lose jobs.”

All of those pressures increase the likelihood of additional criminal encounters, Moore said.

“There are current state conversations and projects working toward tackling recidivism and none of them include building more jail beds — they are overwhelmingly focused on putting in place appropriate supports and addressing trauma, often generational,” Moore said.

Project proposed

In March, a county criminal justice committee said it wanted voters to consider a measure to expand the jail in the November general election. The plan includes a judicial center for criminal courts and the prosecutor's office.

Jay Saxton, Benton County chief public defender, is a member of the committee and favors an approach other than expanding the jail.

“You don't have to hold every single person arrested in jail or hold them on high bonds,” he previously said.

The Bail Project will post bonds up to $5,000 in some cases, Saxton said. The nonprofit organization helps those unable to pay the bond needed to be released and works with those released to meet their obligations to appear in court.

Saxton believes The Bail Project could assist in more cases if bonds were lowered.

The jail is on Southwest 14th Street. The county also has several offices nearby including the Road Department, the Juvenile Detention Center and the coroner and public defender's offices. The campus is 56 acres, County Judge Barry Moehring said.

TreanorHL, an architecture firm based in Kansas City, Mo., called the project the “Criminal Justice Triage Center and Campus Master Plan” during a presentation before the Finance Committee.

Areas dotted in red showed the parameters of where renovation of the existing jail, jail expansion and a repurposed Sheriff's Office could possibly be. Criminal courts are shown in the grassy area close to Southwest 14th Street.

No decision has been made on how to finance the project or on the preliminary expansion plans, and there will be more meetings to discuss the matter.

The county's American Rescue Plan Committee at a meeting April 7 scored requests for American Rescue Plan money with a county jail expansion/ courthouse project ranked highest using $10 million. Using a score of 0 to 5, the jail project had a cumulative score of 4.64. Moehring suggested using another $10 million from rescue plan money and $10 million from reserve for a total of $30 million for the jail/ courthouse project.

The county will receive $54 million from the federal government as part of the American Rescue Plan, about $17 million of which has been spent or committed, said Brenda Peacock, county comptroller.

Peacock on Tuesday showed justices of the peace financing scenarios that included a dedicated sales tax from one-eighth of a cent to 1 cent to a millage increase on property taxes ranging from 0.5 mills to 5 mills.

The county has a 1-cent sales tax. The county millage rate this year is 4.97. The normal millage is 5.0, but needed to be reduced in 2022 due to the increased value in property reappraisals, Peacock said.

The millage rate determines property tax paid. A rate of 10 mills means that $10 in tax is levied on every $1,000 in assessed value, according to the County Collector's web page. Assessed value is 20% of fair market value.

There are several other millages taxpayers also have in their tax statement such as school district and county roads, Peacock said.

Ryan Bowman with Friday, Eldredge & Clark in Little Rock said if voters approve a sales tax increase, it would start April 1, 2023, and the county would begin to receive the money in June 2023. The law firm works with government entities on bond issues.

Will it pass voter muster?

It's the county's job to show voters a tax increase is necessary, Moore said.

In 2018, the county asked voters to approve construction of a $30 million courts complex downtown, but the one-eighth cent sales tax to pay for it was defeated 62% to 38%.

Since then, the county built a $3.1 million project that opened this year and added 5,500 square feet to the 28,000-square-foot courthouse to provide a new courtroom for Christine Horwart, who became the county's seventh circuit court judge in January 2021.

The county financed the project with a loan from Regions Bank for five years at 1.59% with no prepayment penalty, Peacock said.

Circuit Judges Robin Green and Brad Karren hear the county's felony dockets.

Green is in the main courtroom, and Karren holds court in the Courthouse Annex across the street. Those courts would move to the jail in the plan under consideration.

The Quorum Court has to approve any ballot question or questions three times to be on the November ballot, said Justice of the Peace Tom Allen, Finance Committee chairman. The first reading would be in June, he said.

Farmer said he thinks people will vote for the measure if they are convinced the county doesn't have an alternative to increasing jail capacity.

It's logical to do the jail expansion and criminal courts at the same time, he said. Farmer wasn't on the Quorum Court when the downtown courthouse project was presented and defeated, but he supported the project and the location at the time. Several friends disagreed with him about the location mostly because of having to transport prisoners from the jail to downtown, he said.

“The more I think about it, I think the best location for criminal courts is close to the jail,” he said. “If there is a secure walkway from the jail to the courts, it would make it easier for the Sheriff”s Office to get prisoners to court. They could bring over a few people at a time as the judges were ready to see them.”

Moore had a short discussion with Moehring after Tuesday's meeting about the possibility of the county building the criminal judicial center using the $30 million the county could pledge and ask the public to pay for the jail renovation only.

“I strongly believe the more complicated you make a ballot measure, the more likely it will fail,” Moore said. “The public needs to understand that it has been nearly 25 years since the jail was constructed. The county's population has more than doubled since then. We built it with the hope it would be a long time before we asked the people for more money and it has.”

Anglin said it is the county's charge to come up with the best solution to offer voters, do all they can to give good information about the situation and “pray hard that our Benton County citizens will see the need as critical and support going forward. There is nothing easy about this.”