Kootenai County eyes new jail

Associated Press

COEUR D'ALENE - A central Idaho company has proposed building a 621-bed jail in Kootenai County in northern Idaho.

The Spokesman-Review reported that Ketchum-based Facilities Management LLC/Rocky Mountain Corrections told county officials it wants to build the 120,000-square-foot facility in the next two years and lease it to the sheriff's office.

J. Walt Femling, company president and the former sheriff of Blaine County, said Kootenai County would spend less on jail operations than it does now and could lease extra cells to other jurisdictions.

He said the county will spend about $900,000 this year to keep 65 inmates in jails outside the jurisdiction. The new jail, he said, would be designed to run with fewer employees and reduce overtime costs.

"We're saving the county money from its current budget," he said.

Kootenai County Sheriff Ben Wolfinger is backing the idea. He said the jail could house all the county's prisoners plus several hundred from other areas. Voters in Kootenai County have rejected three bond measures to build a new jail, most recently in 2009. Because the jail can't contain all the county's prisoners, the county pays other jurisdictions to house them.

"We obviously have a problem," Wolfinger said. "We're going to spend almost $1 million this year housing people out of county and all the transportation costs, and that doesn't count the risk factor of moving inmates all over the region."

The current 26-year-old jail has 325 beds and is often over capacity, with a daily population between 344 and 364 inmates.

Femling said construction could begin next spring and the jail turned over to the sheriff's office by July 2015. Municipal Capital Markets Group Inc., of Greenwood Village, Colo., would provide financing.

County commissioners didn't make a decision Wednesday about the project, but did have questions. One involved the likelihood of other jurisdictions renting space for inmates.

"I think one of the bigger challenges is to get some kind of commitment from some people that are going to rent some space" in the new jail, Commissioner Dan Green said. "If somebody's not going to step up and say we're good for 50 or 100 beds - it's a huge revenue source here."

The lease would cost the county about $5.4 million a year, with Facilities Management saying it won't raise the rent for at least 20 years.