I supported building a new jail in Pickens County. It was long overdue and needed. However, I do have my list of complaints with how the effort was managed and overseen on various issues by the Pickens county council and county administration.
First, and I wrote about this at the time, the previous county council saved $25 million for the new jail. Their plan was to put down $17 million in cash, borrow the $8 million over 10 years, and put $8 million aside as emergency funds.
This new county council immediately discarded that plan, decided to put nothing down on the jail and borrowed $25 million over 20 years. This quadrupled the county debt. They put the $25 million cash aside and have been spending it on a long list of pet projects.
Because they borrowed so much on the jail, they had to forgo borrowing about $1.3 million a year for capital equipment. Instead, they spent about $3.2 million in capital account savings to cover that. This council is spending down savings in a very irresponsible way.
Second, the initial cost estimate for the jail was about $21-$22 million. It then rose to $25 million and then the budgeted cost rose to $29.5 million. The actual cost is running about $29 million so far.
Strongest Complaint:
Third, and this is my strongest complaint. In late-May, the construction of the jail was finished, but the county didn’t have the staff hired to man it.
The operations budget for the sheriff’s office funds day to day operations of the department, including the additional day to day costs of the jail that is coming on line. The past 5 years that operations budget has risen from $9.8 million to $14.6 million or about 10% a year (see attached). So there was plenty of money there to fund the growing needs of the department with the new jail.
And it was not due to a lack of funding. The $29 million spent to build the jail has been paid for out of the capital account and that is separate.
It was just poor planning on the hiring front, in anticipation of opening the jail.
I watched the videos of the meetings and it was mentioned a few times the scheduled opening date was April 2019. That was also in the budget of 2018-19. I also went back and looked at the minutes and found April 2019 as the scheduled opening date.
In the winter, because of all the rain (the construction finish date were delayed from April 1 to April 24 and then end of May), so the opening got pushed back to June. What it comes down to for me is this: I have a hard time believing the need to add ancillary equipment and doing a punch list should be taking 5 months. My thinking is those things have been slow walked because of the lack of staffing that needs to be in place to get final approval to accept inmates into the jail.
Staffing:
It was my understanding they needed 28 additional positions to staff the jail. When they agreed to close the LEC and the stockade and combine the prisoners and staffs in the new jail. That dropped the need to 14 new positions. In July, when this all blew open, they said they had 22 vacancies to fill. So they hadn’t filled any of the new 14 positions, but lost another 8 of existing employees.
The jail is 73,000 sqf. In the scheme of things, it is not a huge project. In comparison, the school district built 7 new buildings (some nearly 4 times the size of the jail), renovated the rest of its buildings and expanded nearly all of them, a total of about 900,000 sqf. On day 1 all were staffed with administrators, teachers, cafeteria and building maintenance workers, extra property insurance was paid and money was there for growing utility costs. Our annual revenue at the time was growing maybe 2 or 3% a year only, not 10%.
Council Pointing Fingers:
My focus when addressing council and in this write-up was the county council, who writes the checks. Too often elected leaders think their job is to just write the check and go on their merry way. No, they have an oversight responsibility to make sure the money is spent efficiently, right and on time, every step of the way. That is they have to ask questions, investigate, shine light on things and make recommendations all along the way.
They did not do this, evidence they were blindsided by the whole thing when WSPA first reported the jail opening would be delayed because the county fell behind on hiring. The council gets another low grade for oversight on this one as well.
Where The Leadership?
When I ran for council in 2016, I debated most of these councilmen. They all said they were leaders. Where’s the leadership? It is missing and you see that every time a mistake is made or something goes wrong with our county government.
The county administrator, chairman and councilmen are so quick to jump onto the public stage and promote themselves for visiting Washington DC, giving an oversized check to such and such or posting pictures of them adopting a puppy.
When they make a mistake or something goes terribly wrong like this, their Facebook pages are blank on the issue, and they just pray the issue goes away.
The questions that should be answered were, why wasn’t the jail staffed? Who was responsible? How will this problem be solved? What will be the cost? When will the jail be opened?
Pickens Councilmen:
I think Wes Hendricks has to turn it up a bit here. The election debacle, Hagood Mill and this jail situation were all in his district.
Each councilman has an oversight responsibility for what goes on in his district, when the council is paying for it. Wes can’t wait for State Rep Davey Hiott to step in and fix situations like the Hagood Mill, when it is his district and the council is funding the mill.
And Wes, had the responsibility to ask the tough questions on the jail-opening months ago. He had a lead oversight role because the project was in his district and the council paid for it.
This is what happens when you elect people who know nothing about finance, and truly are not leaders in good and bad times.
Good News:
The staff has almost all been hired and they plan on opening the jail in early November.
