State threatens to shut down Warren County Jail, supervisors at stalemate

Warren County has spent $145,000 over the last four months transporting prisoners from its jail to other, larger, facilities in Iowa, Warren County Sheriff Brian Vos told the Carlisle City Council Monday.

Last year — between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017 — the county spent $304,000 on transporting prisoners. Jasper and Clarke counties each received more than $100,000 for taking extra inmates, Vos said.

Warren County has a 17-bed jail, but is responsible for an average of 42 inmates daily. That number is expected to increase to 72 inmates per day by 2037.

The cost of housing inmates is also expected to jump from about $50 per inmate to more than $70 over the next several years, according to Warren County Supervisor Crystal McIntyre.

She estimates that if a new jail isn't built in the next 20 years, the county will pay more than $2 million a year to transport and house inmates.

That estimate is conservative, considering the jail will be closed altogether on Jan. 31, 2018, unless the supervisors set a bond date for a new facility by then.

McIntyre told the council Oct. 13 the three supervisors have agreed to bulldoze the old courthouse, but they can't decide where to put a new courthouse.

She wants to build a joint courthouse and jail facility somewhere off The Square in Indianola, where the old courthouse currently sits. She says her plan is the most economical and is safer because sheriff's deputies won't have to worry about transporting inmates.

Supervisor Doug Shull has repeatedly said he wants to build a new courthouse on The Square. Shull represents Indianola and has said there needs to be something in the middle of The Square to keep the business district alive.

Supervisor Dean Yordi hasn't shared his specific feelings on a location of a new courthouse, but is actively trying to find land to put a new jail.

McIntyre said the bond vote has been pushed back from August 2017 to November 2017 to March 2018. She said she's not confident the supervisors will make the March vote, either, which will mean state jail inspector Delbert Longley will likely shut the jail down.

Should the county jail shut down, McIntyre said it will be up to city police departments to house their inmates until they appear before a judge. Individual police departments would decide where to incarcerate individuals arrested on state charges.

Robert Stuyvesant, Carlisle's city attorney, said that would create havoc because it would allow individual police departments to drop off inmates in whichever county has room.

The supervisors have been debating when and where to build a new jail since 2015, when voters failed to pass a bond issue.