MINUTES
STATE
OF NORTH CAROLINA BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
COUNTY
OF HENDERSON FEBRUARY 7, 2001
The Henderson
County Board of Commissioners met for a special called meeting at 3:00 p.m. in
the Commissioners= Conference Room of the Henderson County Office
Building at 100 North King Street, Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Those present
were: Chairman Bill Moyer, Vice-Chair
Marilyn Gordon, Commissioner Grady Hawkins, Commissioner Charlie Messer, County
Manager David E. Nicholson, and Clerk to the Board Elizabeth W. Corn.
Also present
were: Sheriff George Erwin, Project
Construction Manager Bill Byrnes, Information Technology (IT) Director Kelly
Laughton, and Finance Director J. Carey McLelland.
Commissioner
Don Ward arrived late to the meeting, at 4:06 p.m.
CALL TO
ORDER/WELCOME
Chairman Moyer
called the meeting to order and welcomed those in attendance. He reminded those in
attendance that this was a workshop for the Board of Commissioners to discuss
various aspects of the new detention center.
JAIL RULES
David Nicholson
reviewed a list of rules for the jail which was adopted by the Henderson County
Board of Commissioners in March of 1943.
STATUS OF
CONSTRUCTION
Bill Byrnes
reminded the Board that the Site Preparation work was completed during the
summer of 1999 and construction of the building and its associated site
improvements commenced in December of that same year. As of January 31, 200l the project is approximately 85%
complete. The work remaining is
comprised mainly of internal systems, i.e., HVAC, electrical, plumbing,
security, etc., finalization and testing.
In addition, interior ceilings, lighting, interior finishes, hardware,
floor coverings, etc. are in progress.
Exterior site work, i.e., parking lots, sidewalks, fencing, landscaping,
etc. will commence with improvement in weather conditions stability, most
likely in March.
The project is
on schedule with substantial completion of the construction targeted for late
May of 2001. The estimated total construction cost for the project, including
Site Preparation, is about $8,700,000.00.
He also had a
set of construction drawings and some illustration boards on the project for
the Board=s review and
information.
A question was
raised about change orders whereby Mr. Byrnes stated that we are about six
tenths of one percent of the construction contract in change orders.
TECHNOLOGY
ISSUES
Kelly Laughton
gave the following report regarding technology issues:
1. Building
Wiring Contract
a. The
cabling for telephone and data systems will be completed under the State Term
Contract, as a Category B Project (installation of 100+drops.) The Category B
involves a bid process with a group of contracted vendors. An engineer from Information Technology
Services (ITS) at the State is handling the project and will work with us
through the bid process.
b. Next
month we will schedule a walk-thru to take place in April where the vendors
will look at the site and receive information in the form of a blue print that
includes drop count and drop location.
ITS will prepare the addendum used in the bidding process. After all the bids are in, ITS will review
them and make an award recommendation.
The winner of the bid will complete the wiring project.
3.
The wiring will be completed by the end of May, in accordance with the
construction timeline.
2. Telephone System
1.
The TSA telephone system that currently serves all of the Sheriff=s office will
continue to serve the new detention center.
Staff is working with TSA to move and upgrade the jail module to
accommodate the number of lines in the detention center as determined by the
sheriff=s office jail personnel.
3. Jail Management
Software
1.
The Sheriff=s office will continue to use the Visionair
(formerly Vision) software as the Jail Management system. We are presently licensed for 30 concurrent
users, so no update is required.
2.
In addition to the basic jail module, the Sheriff=s office plans to
add the classification component. The
Jail Inmate Classification System is a product from a company called
Northpointe. This software interfaces
with the Visionair Jail Management system and allows officers to classify
inmates and make appropriate cell/bed assignments. The classification module is
licensed based on facility bed size. A
license for our Detention Center, including training and first year support
will be approximately $20,000.
FINANCIAL REPORT
Carey stated that
the budget is progressing well. He
reviewed the Project to Date Financial Report:
Revenue sources
were reviewed showing the total funds available to date to be $10,375,977.06.
Carey then reviewed the expenditures by category for a total of $1,226,832.76
and Site Preparation and Construction costs to date equal $6,017,406.05. Total
construction costs to date minus the Sales tax refund for 99-00 equals
$6,184,858.88, leaving the remaining revenue sources of $2,964,285.42. Mr.
McLelland reviewed these figures in detail and answered questions from the
Board.
FURNITURE, FIXTURES
AND EQUIPMENT (FF&E)
Carey McLelland
distributed a four page hand-out listing the FF&E which amounts to roughly
$200,000.
Mr. McLelland did
not see anything that would keep the project from coming in under budget.
OPERATIONAL ISSUES
The Sheriff=s staff (Consultant
Carol Roberts and Stephanie Cosgrove, Inmate Services Director) updated the
Board on the following operational issues:
1.
Classification Program
2.
Booking
3.
Central Records
4.
Other Issues:
a. Programs
2.
Video Visitation
c. Number
of Beds
3.
Work Release
Classification
Program
Carol Roberts
stated that Captain Pruett had talked to her about designing a housing plan for
the new jail, only opening three of the housing units initially (three of the
four pods). She conducted a pilot study
with the current inmate population. She
discussed the point additive scale she used.
If an inmate ranks 0 - 5 points, they would be a low risk inmate, if they rank 5 - 13 points, they would be a
general population inmate and 14 points or higher would be high risk inmates. She split up the predator inmates and the
prey inmates. The information utilized
to make the rankings will be taken from the initial booking sheets, interviews
with the inmates, national criminal history, local criminal history, letters
from the inmates, and incident reports.
Henderson County
plans to use indirect supervision, partly because we don=t have staff to
have direct supervision. Sheriff Erwin
stated that he prefers direct supervision.
Centralized Booking
/ Records
Captain Pruett
distributed a hand-out (I did not get one).
Sheriff Erwin stated that the plus of centralized booking is that the
officer on the street will only be booking for about 15 minutes and will be
back on the street versus 1.5 - 2 hours for the old way of booking. Sheriff
Erwin stated that the quality part of centralized booking and centralized
records means that everything will be done by one group of people all the time
and that way everything is done uniformly.
All the fingerprints are done uniformly, the process is done
uniformly.
He hopes that the
municipalities will come on board and want to participate in the centralized
booking. It would be an added benefit
to them because their officers would only be off the street about 15 minutes.
Sheriff Erwin
reminded the Board that he always pursues grant opportunities, if we can find
alternative revenues to offset the expense to the local taxpayer, we=re going to do
that. He has been in contact with
Washington and if we end up deciding we want centralized booking for everyone,
we can get a universal hiring grant for that which would pay 75% of the costs
for the booking officers over a three year period. Local match would be 25%.
It was explained
that centralized booking is the front-end and if it=s all done to standard,
then the information can be shared across the area. A complete history can be
found, sorted through, and used by all law enforcement units. Buncombe County
has successfully utilized centralized booking/records for a number of years. Henderson County would bill the
municipalities for the service to them.
Kelly Laughton
explained that from a technology perspective the information flows as follows:
When an offender is brought in and an arrest is conducted the arrest
information is entered into a records management system for the agency. The arrest data begins the record on the
individual, is then processed through fingerprinting, photo identification and being taken before the magistrate. If it is determined that they will be booked
into the facility, that information then is entered in terms of booking into
the jail facility/module. Kelly then
explained in detail how the
municipalities would share our data.
Henderson County would provide the central server.
The County Manager
will meet with the Municipal Managers, Sheriff Erwin has been talking with the
Police Chiefs about centralized booking/records and we hope to get the
municipalities to join us in this endeavor.
Programs
Sheriff Erwin
explained that there are a number of programs that will be operating in the new
facility, trying to cut down on repeat offenders. They=re trying to get a GED program begun, looking
at a drug/alcohol abuse program, anger management program, and offer religious
services in the facility. Buncombe County has found that they can get
reimbursed for an illegal immigrant that they house in their facility and we
will adopt that program. Buncombe
County got $170,000 reimbursement from the federal government last year. All
these programs will not be operational immediately when the facility is opened,
some are short term and others are long term goals for the new facility. The
facility has 231 beds but we plan to only open about 168 beds initially. The work release program will not be
operational in the new facility, because we don=t have the staff to
operate it. The Board stated that they would like to see how many staff would
be needed to operate the work release program and Sheriff Erwin answered that
they would probably see that in Captain Pruett=s budget requests this
year.
Sheriff Erwin
stated that Henderson County designed a facility that will last for some
time. He thanked the Board of
Commissioners, David Nicholson, Bill Byrnes, the Project Team, all involved
County Staff and Sheriff=s Dept. Staff.
Sheriff Erwin
stated that about $20,000 was saved by changing to video visitation in the new
facility.
There was much
discussion with staff answering many questions from the Board.
Open House
There was brief
discussion about the open house. Staff
has discussed the possibility of having a lock-in as a fund raiser where anyone
can pay to spend a night in the jail. Buncombe County did this and it acted as
a dry run for the jail. Staff would get to do system tests. Of course, it is anticipated that there will
also be a general community open house.
August or September is the anticipated time for an open house.
Chairman Moyer
stressed that this has been an very important project to the current Board of
Commissioners. He told staff that if
they see any problems brewing, to please inform the Board of Commissioners
before it becomes a big problem. He
stated that the Board is pleased with the progress that has been made.
There being no
further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at approx.
4:20 p.m.
Attest:
Elizabeth W. Corn,
Clerk to the Board William L. Moyer, Chairman