News Track: Johnson County sheriff working on plan for new jail

Officials in Johnson County are working on a plan to build a new county jail after an assessment of its structural conditions last year found the current facility to be lacking.

Background

Discussions about getting a new jail in Johnson County have been ongoing for years. In 2012 and 2013, Johnson County voters rejected bond measures to finance a new justice center that would have addressed the county’s aging jail and courthouse. The measures got more than 50 percent support from voters, but failed to meet the 60 percent threshold needed for approval.

Johnson County officials told The Gazette in December 2022 the jail was at the end of its useful life. A county facility condition audit in April 2023 rated the building as being in “very poor” condition.

A structural property conditions assessment performed on the jail last year found that while operations can continue in the near-term and aren’t deemed life- threatening, the jail “has a number of significant deficiencies” and is in need of structural repair. The Johnson County Board of Supervisors expressed urgency in moving forward on plans for a new jail when the results of the assessment were presented to them last August.

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The current Johnson County Jail opened in 1981 with a 46-inmate capacity. Not long after, the county started bunking inmates two to a cell for a capacity of 92. The facility was built when the Sheriff’s Office had about 50 full-time employees. Now, almost 100 full-time employees work out of a space designed for half as many.

Johnson County Sheriff Brad Kunkel said despite the jail having 92 beds, the functional capacity of the jail recently is closer to 65, based on the staff the Sheriff’s Office has available and the amount of inmates who need to have a cell to themselves for reasons like mental illness or assaultive behavior.

The rest of the inmates the jail has in custody are housed in other county jails that Johnson County contracts with, including Linn County. The contract with Linn County was established in January, after Linn County canceled its agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service. Kunkel said he doesn’t believe the move to house inmates in Linn County will affect the plans to build a new jail.

“The move to Linn County was more just out of convenience. When they ended their contract for housing federal inmates, it really opened the door for me to house inmates closer to home,” Kunkel said.

What’s happened since

The discussion about building a new jail hasn’t been brought back in front of the Board of Supervisors since the assessment results were presented in August, but Kunkel said he hopes to open that conversation again before the end of this month.

The Sheriff’s Office has been working with Shive Hattery, a Cedar Rapids architecture and engineering consulting company, to complete a spatial needs study.

“This will be the first time we're really coming back with it to show, based on our meetings and our review from staff about what we need to fit our needs … here's what we've come up with for a concept,” Kunkel said. “It's certainly nothing that is set in stone or that we can move forward on, but it will at least open our eyes to the size of a building that we would need for Johnson County today and for the next couple of decades.”

Kunkel said he’d like the new building to be able to house all of the county’s inmates, and remove the need to contract with other counties. It also will need to better accommodate sheriff’s staffing and other needs.

Although decisions about a new jail are still up in the air, Kunkel said he is fairly certain it won’t be built in the same location as the current jail. The current building is 28,000 square feet and doesn’t have much room for parking or public access, he said.

After the spatial needs assessment is completed and presented, the county can start working to create a plan, which eventually would be presented to voters.

“This is probably the most important infrastructure decision the voters are going to have to make in the next few years, and I'm certain people care very deeply about it because I get asked about it everywhere I go,” Kunkel said. “I'm optimistic that when the day comes that we have a plan to present to the public, that we'll be successful. We just have to make sure we do the hard work on the front end to make sure something gets passed.”

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com