Officials ponder a new jail to serve the region

Kansas City Star

March 25, 2008

A regional jail got a significant boost Tuesday, with some key officials announcing they are on board for a cooperative agreement to explore the idea.

Councilwoman Cathy Jolly said she would introduce a resolution Thursday expressing the council's intent to work with local municipal and county governments, including Jackson County, to develop a regional correctional system.

Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders and Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar along with Police Chief Jim Corwin and Jolly planned to discuss their efforts at a news conference this morning.

Jolly, a former assistant prosecutor, said the efforts would include exploring immediate cost savings by consolidating similar efforts, such as food services and booking and warrant systems. She said much work remained to be done, including where to build a new jail and how to pay for it, but the important issue was letting the public know the city would not close its jail or privatize it.

'We are in the very beginning,' she said. 'There are a lot of questions, and some are quite complicated, but we will work through them.'

Discussions about a regional jail occurred under the administration of former Mayor Kay Barnes but picked up steam recently when Mayor Mark Funkhouser proposed closing the city jail, arguing that most cities do not run their own jails and that corrections should be a regional function. Other city officials raised the idea of hiring an outside business to operate the jail.

Besides Kansas City and Jackson County, smaller cities in the county would participate and help pay for the regional jail and its operation, said Calvin Williford, the county's chief of intergovernmental relations and communications.

'You not only end up with something that is cost-effective but provides a higher level of service,' Williford said. Various ways to pay for construction would be explored, he said. Sanders would oppose a tax increase, he said.

Sanders has proposed building a 2,500-bed regional jail. He said the county's jail, which has a capacity of about 780, is overcrowded and has no room to take city prisoners.

Along with the county jail for serious offenders, Kansas City currently runs its own jail for people who violate municipal ordinances. The Municipal Correctional Institution, 8100 Ozark Road in east Kansas City, holds detainees who cannot post bond and sentenced prisoners. It has a budget this year of $4.7 million.

While Funkhouser has raised the idea of selling the city jail to the county or participating in a regional jail, the mayor did not know Tuesday whether he would attend the news conference, spokesman Kendrick Blackwood said. Jolly said she would be keenly disappointed if Funkhouser did not support her resolution.

By combining some services, Jolly hopes the city can save thousands of dollars next year on jail operations without cutting employees.

Lester Washington, director of Kansas City's Neighborhood and Community Services, which manages the municipal jail, said he did not know whether there would be immediate savings, but it would come over time. He said the goal was not so much cost savings as better service.

Corwin said the current jail situation is inefficient.

'It's helter-skelter right now,' he said Tuesday. 'We need to start the dialogue and see what (a regional jail) means for everybody. Is this something that's going to work for us?'

INSIDE

Anticipated Kansas City budget cuts could mean fewer street paving projects this year. | B2

The federal government says no to the city's offer of Liberty Memorial ownership. | B2

Copyright © 2008 Kansas City Star, All Rights Reserved.