(Sibley)– Voters in Osceola county in November will decide the fate of a $5 million bond issue for improvements to the county’s law enforcement center and jail. Sheriff Kevin Wollmuth says the needs have been mounting…
“Every jail in Iowa gets conducted a jail inspection through the state and over the past several years we have not been meeting the state qualifications on those jail inspections.”
He says the improvements would allow them to do things more efficiently…
“We need to be able to supervise the inmates better visually, they’re called a visual check, and with the way our jail is currently set up, if there’s no deputy in the office at the time and if there’s only a dispatcher, which we are all jailers, dispatchers and deputies, it’s too far of a distance for a dispatcher to walk to a jail cell and leave the 911 operation unmanned. We just can’t meet the qualifications for doing visual checks.”
Wollmuth says some of the project, if the funding is approved, would involve the 911 center…
“Part of the remodel is going to be the dispatch center, the 911 center, is going to be moved to hopefully the remodeled location and then the jail cells will set around that. So it will be just as easy for the dispatchers looking out a window and they can be looking directly at a jail cell.”
He goes on to explain why the issue is coming up now specifically…
“Back a couple of years ago Osceola county was awarded through ARPA funds, the American Rescue Plan, it was like $1.6 million. The Board of Supervisors had to designate where that money should be used at, so the board voted and they said that whole amount should be used toward a remodel of our jail facility.”
Wollmuth says the project would also free up some badly needed space…
“It’s going to be to update the jail but then by updating the jail we can eliminate some of the things that we’re using in our current building and we can use the space provided in our current building. We can add more offices and have more storage.”
Wollmuth gives a break down on how Osceola county taxpayers would be impacted should voters approve the bond issue…
“Right now the way it’s looking the tax impact is going to be, for a residential $100,000 value, it’s going to, estimated annual tax increase is going to be $32.24. On agricultural land of $2,000 value per acre, it’s going to be $1.08 tax increase; and commercially, a $75,000 value is a $39.83 increase and a $250,000 commercial value is $132.75 tax increase.”
Wollmuth says without the improvements, regulators would eventually shut down the jail, forcing them to send prisoners to jails in other counties. He says that would be a costly endeavor.
(Courtesy Community First Broadcasting station KIWA in Sheldon)
