BENTONVILLE -- Yellow-and-black buses are a familiar sight around schools, but drivers on Southwest 14th Street are seeing them in an unusual location this summer -- at the Benton County sheriff's office.
The Bentonville School District is taking advantage of a service offered by the Benton County jail and is having the buses cleaned by inmates.
Work details
The Benton County Sheriff’s Office provides inmate work crews to assist local governments and nonprofit agencies. For more information, call the Sheriff’s Office at 479-271-1008.
Source: Staff report
Staff Sgt. James Sharp oversees the work details at the jail. The work cleaning the buses is new, but the inmate work details have been a fixture at the jail, he said.
"It's always been there. It's just one of those things that never caught the eyes of people," Sharp said.
Inmate work crews have helped build homes for Habitat For Humanity; done cleanup jobs, minor construction or repair work for local governments and nonprofit agencies; and helped the county's Road Department for many years, Sharp said.
"It's a way to save the taxpayers' money and help these guys pay their debt to society," Sharp said.
Chris DeWitt, transportation director for the school district, said he learned of the inmate work details through the district's facilities department, which obtained inmate assistance in assembling and installing furniture at the new high school in Centerton.
The district has more than 150 buses in the fleet and typically could only get a few thoroughly cleaned during summer break, DeWitt said. The district has some employees in the drivers' pool who would work through the summer, but not enough manpower to get the job done, DeWitt said.
"We never had the time to do all the things we wanted to do," he said.
The buses are given a quick, once-over cleaning by school district employees and then checked by deputies after the buses arrive at the jail to be certain there are no contraband items on board, Sharp said. Inmates remove the seats to power-wash the interior, then disinfect and treat the seats. The exterior is also washed, and any paint or trim in need of a touch-up or repair is dealt with before the vehicles are waxed from top to bottom, including the roofs, Sharp said.
"Some of those buses haven't been waxed in years," he said. "They look like they're brand new."
Inmate work details are made available to local governments and nonprofits as often as possible, Sharp said. One crew worked in Pea Ridge recently at the new city administration building. Pea Ridge Mayor Jackie Crabtree said his city has made use of the crews before and will continue to do so.
"They've helped us build sidewalks, helped clean up the city park and they helped remodel the old [Mercy Clinic] building into the library," Crabtree said.
The most recent job was more unusual for the inmates, Crabtree said.
"We had them pulling data cabling at the new city hall building," he said. "They pulled over 10,000 feet of data cables in less than half a day. I don't have an exact amount, but I know it would have cost the city thousands of dollars if we had to hire someone to do that. It's a great program. Whenever we get ready to move, they're going to come back and help us move office furniture and other things to the new city offices."
While the program benefits local governments and agencies, saving tax dollars in the process, the inmates also benefit, Sharp said. In addition to earning "good time" and potentially reducing their sentences, he said, the work is a learning opportunity for the inmates.
"Our deputies are teaching those guys a trade," Sharp said. "When they do get out, they have that to fall back on. Some of these guys have made big mistakes. They're in here and they're cleaning themselves up. They want the opportunity to feel like they're human, and going out and working in public makes them feel that way."
Metro on 06/29/2016