Stoddard County commissioners continued jail expansion discussion by asking for input from area judges, sheriff's department personnel and Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver.
"I think the proposed jail is too big," Presiding Commissioner Greg Mathis said. "I'm not arguing what the sheriff sees as needs, I'm just arguing what the county can afford because a tax can't take care of something forever."
Commissioners were presented last month with a proposed two-story, 120 bed facility coming in at the high end estimated cost of $13 million by Dale Rogers, president of Robert Stearns and Associates, Inc., of Sikeston, Mo.
Rogers warned commissioners the numbers were high while in the "very preliminary stages" of the project during the initial presentation.
During the Jan. 29 meeting, Rogers said the cost is now a little more than $9 million plus another $1 million to remodel the existing jail facility.
To help cover the costs, Sheriff Carl Hefner presented the commissioners with a rough draft of two Stoddard County Sheriff operations tax propositions to potentially put before voters on the same ballot.
The first proposition would ask voters for a county wide sales tax of half of one percent for the purpose of maintaining the Stoddard County Jail and sheriff's office operations.
If the first proposition passes, the second proposition would ask voters for a county wide sales tax at the rate of half of one percent for a period of ten years from the date on which the tax is imposed.
This money would be imposed for the purpose of the renovation of the existing jail, construction, equipment and design cost of a jail addition.
Hefner estimates about $3 million in funds from the potential propositions each year.
This would total a $30 million cost to tax payers.
Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver and Judge Joe Satterfield both warned $30 million would be a big hit for taxpayers in a county the size of Stoddard.
However, both men agreed something needed to be done to the existing jail.
Oliver spoke on the overcrowding of the jail and explained public defenders and defense attorneys have no place to meet with their clients before court.
Meetings are taking place on court day along with consideration of plea deals, again pushing back court dates, which already can take an average of two weeks, clogging up the system and adding to the jail population.
"To truly realize what we need, you have to be there day in and day out to see how the operations go," Hefner said.
He added he is not pushing for a $13 million project.
To cut costs, Rogers said a level construction site would help save money. Considering the elevation issues at the current site and facility needs, Rogers said the best option was to plan for a two story facility.
The Government Building's basement was looked at as a potential expansion area, but Rogers found it would not be cost effective to renovate the area, which would call for more manpower, meal transportation, a fire sprinkler system and more.
While the driving force of the jail expansion project is the number of inmates housed, officials were in agreement no matter how many beds are in the facility, the number of inmates will exceed at some point.
Chief Deputy Andy Holden said the department can deal with overpopulation to a certain point, but not continually at the population seen now.
Rogers suggested for officials to come up with the number of beds needed as well as a projected number for future inmate housing to continue planning forward. The number of beds in the facility will determine the size of the kitchen and other areas.
"The bottom line is we are going to have to do something down the line if we are going to keep a jail here," Hefner said. "Maybe not $13 million worth, but something."
"I think we are all in agreement we need to do something," Commissioner Steve Jordan said. "The longer we keep kicking the can down the road, the more expensive it will get."
Mathis assured the commission is in no rush to place anything on the ballot before voters until they reach a conclusion they are happy with.
"We are not going to make a jump decision on something we have been working on for 10 years," he said.
The earliest anything could be seen on the ballot would be during the August election. The certification deadline for the April election has already passed.
After the discussion, Mathis said he believed the commission had more information to proceed forward before placing something officials can agree on to the voters.
Plans are for officials to meet again in about a month after processing the information and continue hammering out details.
"We had to have something concrete to look at before going forward," Mathis said of the current proposed jail renderings.