City and county officials express support for regional jail

March 26, 2008

Jackson County and Kansas City officials confirmed their support for a regional jail Wednesday, but they acknowledged it could take several years to complete.

County Executive Mike Sanders said the county is seeking responses by April 11 for information from firms knowledgeable about building such regional facilities.

Meanwhile, Kansas City Councilwoman Cathy Jolly said she will introduce a resolution today directing the city manager to develop a plan for how the city can participate in a regional correctional system.

The county jail holds about 800 people, but Sanders said the county needs more capacity. The county also has 17 municipalities that require some type of facility for dealing with municipal ordinance violators. Kansas City has a municipal correctional institution that holds up to several hundred inmates at a time.

All those bureaucracies could save money and improve public safety by combining into one facility, Sanders said.

'This is a watershed moment,' Jackson County Prosecutor James Kanatzar said at a news conference announcing support for the concept.

Jolly said the idea of a regional jail has been discussed for years, but the right people are in place now to make it happen. The discussions are also involving Independence, Lee's Summit and smaller cities within Jackson County.

But Jolly acknowledged the plan is in its infancy and there are a lot more questions than answers. Officials cannot say yet where the facility would be located, how much it would cost, or how cities and the county would pay for it. Sanders said his goal would be that the facility not require a tax increase.

Nancy Leazer, superintendent of the Municipal Correctional Institution, said she thinks a regional jail could be a good idea. It would be different from turning the city jail over to a private company, an idea which Jolly said she would not support.

Leazer predicted a definite plan for a regional jail is 'at least a year away,' and it would likely take longer than that to build and start running.

The regional jail concept would not solve the immediate Kansas City budget problems, which have led to a proposal to cut the municipal jail's $4.7 million budget by $600,000. Leazer said that level of a cut would not require the jail to close and that she thought she could absorb it without layoffs.

Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser was not at the news conference, but aides said that was because of a scheduling conflict and did not mean he opposed the concept.

'I want to find an option that substantially reduces the city's cost,' he said Wednesdayafter stating he thinks a regional jail is a good idea.

@ Go to KansasCity.com for Dave Helling's video report on the push for a regional jail.

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