The on again, off again, on again St. Mary’s County Detention Center expansion project is off again. The county commissioners during a work session on Monday eventually voted 3-2 to remove the expansion from the capital budget beginning in Fiscal year 2015 and instead putting more than $9.5 million in the FY ’14 budget for renovations to the existing jail, including air conditioning, security cameras and improved locking mechanisms.
The discussion at Monday’s work session took so many twists and turns that for a while staff didn’t know exactly what the commissioners wanted.
Commissioner Lawrence Jarboe (R: 3rd) was one of three commissioners to vote for removal of the project last year after it came in $7 million over budget estimate. But last week Jarboe, after talking to the sheriff, led the discussion about putting the jail back in the budget. Jarboe, however, has remained steadfast that a property issue between the state and county had to be resolved before any expansion could proceed. That left a 3-2 vote on favor of the expansion on the table.
County staff thus presented a revised capital budget with monies for the expansion in the budget beginning in FY ’15. They put in the budget a total price of $35.1 million, representing the revised bid price plus a five percent contingency. The staff assumed the state will continue to pay 50 percent of the expanded cost even though the county had earlier told the state they were backing out of the project.
Also the staff presented a price tag of $6.6 million for the renovation work, which the state would not pay for. That price included some work in the existing building and some work in the expanded building.
On one point the discussion turned on advancing the expansion project to the FY ’14 budget which begins in July. Commissioners Cynthia Jones (R: 1st) Daniel Morris (R: 2nd) remained steadfast throughout the discussion that they would not support the expansion, particularly with the bloated price tag. “I don’t understand the rationale of bringing this project (the expansion) back,” Jones said. And Morris added, “I cannot justify to anybody spending $7 million more (the elevated bid) when I don’t know where it is going.” They both did indicate support for the renovation project.
Jarboe continued to insist that the property issue had to be resolved first but once that happened he would support moving ahead with the expansion. But he added parenthetically that he might want something else pulled from the budget.
At that statement Commissioner Todd Morgan’s ears perked up. Morgan (R: 4th) has been a staunch supporter of the FDR Boulevard expansion and Jarboe has opposed it. Morgan took Jarboe’s statement as an attack o
