The Kansas City Council on Thursday approved a deal to send city inmates to a Jackson County detention facility downtown. Report from KansasCity.com.
The ordinance authorizes city staff to proceed with a regional jail concept, committing $3.1 million annually to house 150 prisoners a day in the county facility. The city will also provide money for construction costs estimated at $2.1 million. The city hopes to save $1 million in annual city jail operations, and the aging Municipal Correctional Institution will close.
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Kansas City MO Manager Wayne Cauthen wants to use $1.5 million from a public safety sales tax to expand the Jackson County Jail — a project never marketed to voters. His plan angers Kansas City police.
Voters were told in 2002 that the quarter-cent sales tax would earmark $110 million for the Police Department, $13.2 million for Metropolitan Ambulance Services Trust, and $3 million for tornado sirens and emergency preparedness. At the time, police told voters their share of tax proceeds would fund 10 specific capital improvement projects. The jail project was not on the list, Police Chief Jim Corwin said. “This is not what was sold to the public,” Corwin said Monday. “We feel it is inappropriate.”
Cauthen suggested in his budget proposal to divert $1.5 million from Police Department projects to renovate the county jail so it can accommodate city prisoners. The City Council voted last week to close the current city jail in order to save $1 million. City officials believe using the money for the jail is proper, spokeswoman Mary Charles said Monday. “It is a public safety sales tax, not just a police sales tax,” she said. “We believe it is a benefit to police, even though it wasn’t on the original list.”
More on this dispute in the Kansas City Star.
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Jackson County MO and Kansas City officials on Tuesday filled in important blanks about how they would operate a new regional jail, according to the Kansas City Star.
- The third and fourth floors of the county’s Community Justice Building at 1305 Locust St. would house inmates once housed at the Municipal Correctional Institution;
- The Kansas City Police Department is discussing whether to use the new facility for short-term detentions of prisoners now housed in police headquarters. The county wants $500,000 to upgrade its building;
- The city would pay $57 per inmate per day, a total of $3.1 million for 150 beds. In addition, the city would pay an “intake fee” of $3 per inmate;
- The city, if it allows the county to supervise needed improvements at the Community Justice Building, would provide $1.4 million in 2009 and up to $600,000 in 2010. An alternative would be for the city to design and contract the renovations.
Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders said other Jackson County cities may wish to join, but the priority was to get a deal with Kansas City, which would provide the largest number of inmates. Legislator Dan Tarwater said, “In these economic times, this is the kind of thing that everyone needs to look at.”
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The Kansas City Star has published an editorial on plans for the municipal jail and its inmates.
A plan to move 140 inmates from Kansas City’s aging Municipal Correctional Institution to the Jackson County Jail isn’t the ideal solution to the city’s corrections problem … The decrepit jail in eastern Kansas City houses non-violent offenders who commit violations such as panhandling, loitering and possessing drugs. Some city officials have long wanted to close the jail to save money … But it’s a much better option than another that’s been floated: shipping the inmates out of town to one or more privately run jails … The best solution would be a regional jail. A shared facility could handle corrections better and for less money than counties and cities are doing on their own.
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