Officials grapple with jail costs

FINDLAY — With costs to operate the Hancock County jail increasing and expected to total $5.5 million in 2025, the county commissioners are looking for ways to save money. On paper, it would appear that it might cost less to house all local prisoners at a regional jail, the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio (CCNO) in Stryker. The current Hancock County jail, built 35 years ago, is too small and has become outdated. The commissioners on Thursday floated the idea of reducing jail operations so prisoners would spend less time there and get shipped to the regional jail. But that idea was discouraged by nearly 30 officials, including Findlay police, the Sheriff's Office, judges, prosecutors, public defenders, probation, mental health, nonprofit and other agencies. Findlay Municipal Court currently sentences some people to serve at CCNO, but its use of the facility is more limited, Judge Alan Hackenberg said. Officials cited a variety of reasons to keep the jail a maximum security, full service facility. Transporting prisoners to a jail over an hour away would put the safety of officers and the public at risk and would incur transportation and overtime costs. Officials questioned whether there would be much cost savings at all. Others said mental health services, nonprofit and other recidivism-reducing services would be hindered. "The citizens of Findlay deserve better, and Hancock County," Findlay Police Chief James Mathias said. "A full-service jail means a lot. You can hold persons accountable from the time that they step into that jail facility until they see a judge and complete their sentence." CCNO is too far away, Mathias said. "The biggest thing is public safety, not just for the general public but also for our officers," he said. "By operating the facility that's being proposed, you're putting not only the public at risk, you're the putting officers at risk doing all of these transports." Costs for the police department, and the general public, would increase dramatically, Mathias said. The meeting lasted over an hour. A Community Advisory Committee, led by retired Judge Joseph Niemeyer, in October recommended that the county build a 150-bed jail on County Road 140. The Sheriff's Office would relocate there with the jail. It could be financed with a 0.25% sales tax. A new jail could cost an estimated $50 million to $100 million, County Commissioner William Bateson said. The advisory committee made additional recommendations. Among those: If a sales tax increase cannot be enacted, officials should explore the cost of renovating the current jail into a "smaller pretrial detention facility" and contract with CCNO should jail overcrowding occur. "This is not a city problem. This is not a county problem. It's a city-county problem. The jail is structured to deal mainly with felony offenders and the majority of the felony offenders come through the Findlay police department," Niemeyer said. "It's always been that way because Findlay is the metropolitan municipality that's the county seat. "Commissioners are going to come and go, prosecutors, judges, sheriffs are going to come and go. That's why I've recently advocated (that) we've got to get an agreement between the city folks and the county folks; put together a blueprint for the next five, six, seven, 10 years and everybody sticks to that, even though you're the new guy or the new lady in an office," he said. "Once we get that all put together correctly and have commitments from various governmental agencies, then I think we march forward. "This problem is not going to go away," Niemeyer said. "The life of a jail is 35 years. It's not forever. … I'm not sure the citizens of this city and county understand that. They think if it's still standing, it's 50 years old, and it's conducive to the internet, etc., etc. and we all know it's not."