Madison County officials have until Aug. 25 to satisfy state jail standards on staffing and until Nov. 5 to have a long-term plan in place for expanding the jail before state officials will take steps to close it, a state official said.
Madison County is among more than a half-dozen city or county governments on probation for a jail that does not comply with state jail standards, said Danny Hickman, coordinator for the state Criminal Detention Facilities Review Commission. Newton County and Phillips County were required to shut down jails that were out of compliance.
"We definitely want to work every angle we can to help them," Hickman said.
The Madison County Quorum Court will convene at 6 p.m. Monday in a special meeting to consider a temporary solution for staffing.
But the future of the jail depends on the outcome of a Nov. 4 sales tax election, County Judge Frank Weaver said.
"If this sales tax does not pass, we have no long-term plan," Weaver told the Quorum Court during a meeting this past Monday.
Without a long-term plan, the county will be asked to close the jail, he said.
The temporary solution is a proposal to appropriate $34,000 to the sheriff's office to hire two more staff members for the jail, said County Clerk Faron Ledbetter. Half of the money would come from the county's 911 fund and the rest would come from the county's general fund balance.
The money would pay for the additional staffing through December, but the county could not continue to pay for those positions through the 911 fund and county balances, Ledbetter said.
A long-term plan for the jail depends on voters approving the new sales tax, Ledbetter said.
The sales tax proposal asks voters to approve an additional 1 percent sales tax for the county general budget, with the tax expiring in 12 years. The tax would generate an estimated $1 million annually, with the Quorum Court planning to put 25 percent, or $250,000, toward a jail building fund and another 9.5 percent, or $95,000, toward staffing for the sheriff's office and jail.
The rest of the money generated by the tax is planned for a courthouse restoration fund, solid waste and recycling center, county libraries, rural fire departments and stabilizing the county general budget. By law, a portion would go to the cities of Hindsville, Huntsville and St. Paul.
A five-member Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee for Madison and Washington counties spent several hours Friday meeting with officials from Madison County during an annual inspection of the jail, Madison County Sheriff Phillip Morgan said. The committee had two major concerns with ongoing staffing and overcrowding in the jail.
"We've got to have more staffing," Morgan said.
With two more staff members the county would have two people on duty every shift, instead of having some shifts with only one person on duty, Morgan said. The jail staff are responsible for answering 911 calls, dispatch services among law enforcement agencies and also overseeing the jail.
The review committee also had concerns that people preparing food at the jail lack a sink to wash their hands and about security of the booking area, which currently consists of a handcuff bolted to the wall in a hallway adjacent to the jail office, Ledbetter said.
"The booking area is unsafe," Ledbetter said. "They need more of a private, secure area."
Morgan said the issues with staffing and space have been ongoing since he became sheriff in 1999. The existing jail is an eight-bed jail built in the 1980s, but the jail often will have 10 or 12 men at a time, he said.
"We've got enough room for one in a cell, and sometimes we have to double them up," Morgan said.
NW News on 07/30/2014