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E-mail StoryCounty gets $100 million to expand jail by 790 beds
| Thursday, May 8 2008 3:52 PM
Last Updated: Friday, May 9 2008 7:56 AM
Kern County has been tentatively awarded a $100 million state grant to construct 790 beds in a new jail building at Lerdo Jail.
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Medium and large counties
San Bernardino: $100 million
San Joaquin: $80 million
Kern: $100 million
Orange: $100 million
Santa Barbara: $56.3 million
San Diego: $100 million
Monterey: $80 million
Los Angeles: $33.7 million
Small counties
Yolo: $30 million
Kings: $30 million
Madera: $30 million
Calaveras: $10 million
The Corrections Standards Authority, a division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, made a preliminary award to Kern County, said department Press Secretary Seth Unger Thursday afternoon.
The funding comes from Assembly Bill 900, approved in 2007. Unger said Kern’s petition in the competitive bid for funding got the third highest mark in the state.
Now Kern County’s proposed site will be evaluated to see if it deserves the funding, Unger said. Kern must be deemed a suitable location to site a “secure re-entry facility,” he said.
That’s basically a place where prisoners in their final 12 months of incarceration can get job training, anger management help, substance abuse counseling and other assistance preparing them for release, Unger said.
If Kern’s plan passes muster, Unger said, Thursday’s provisional funding could be confirmed Sept. 18.
“This is huge,” said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. “We have people doing 30 percent of their time in our jails” because of space restrictions.
Kern County, Youngblood said, will have to come up with $37 million to match the state’s money.
“This is a great opportunity to leverage its dollars with a huge contribution from the state,” said Supervisor Mike Maggard. “And it will help us solve a problem we’ve been fighting for decades. Older parts of our current jail are falling apart. If they are condemned by the state then this jail population will explode on us.”
County supervisors haven’t decided where to find the matching money. But they’ve tentatively agreed to finance the project through a local bond that would also help fund road and freeway construction.
In a March presentation to supervisors, during which they blessed the Sheriff’s Department’s plan to ask the state for the AB 900 money, Kern County Undersheriff Marty Williamson said the new jail building would cost about $143.5 million.
Annual operating costs for the new jail building, Williamson said, is estimated to cost the county $20 million in annual operating expenses once the facility is fully open.