Traverse City News and Events

County Talks Jail Safety, Boardman Projects, Animal Control

By Beth Milligan | March 22, 2018

In the wake of a spate of suicides and suicide attempts at Grand Traverse County Jail, Sheriff Tom Bensley appeared before county commissioners Wednesday to provide an update on the status of the jail – with commissioners expressing increased urgency to move forward with building a new facility.

Bensley told commissioners inmate overcrowding, staff shortages, building conditions, and insufficient mental health treatment services all posed serious challenges at the county jail on Washington Street. The facility, built in 1964 and reconstructed in 1984 and 2004, has a rated capacity of 168 inmates – but to operate efficiently, should only accommodate 143, Bensley said. To avoid overcrowding, the jail pays neighboring counties to board inmates when capacity levels are reached. However “other agencies want our best inmates, so…what we’re left with is the high maintenance inmates who require more intensive supervision,” Bensley said.

With 34 corrections officers, the jail is short at least eight full-time corrections officers, according to Bensley – with five more vacancies currently on the schedule due to various employee absences. “We are scheduling significant overtime,” Bensley said. The sheriff also added that the county’s contracts with Community Mental Health and Correct Care Solutions to provide mental health treatment for inmates consistently fall short of meeting the demands of the jail. Between March 1 and March 15, the jail had 83 mental health referral requests from inmates, 29 of which were deemed urgent or emergent (an emergency) and received immediate intervention from Community Mental Health. But of the remaining 54 non-emergent requests, 28 inmates today “are still awaiting some type of care,” Bensley said. The sheriff also told commissioners that earlier this month, the jail had “eight people on suicide watch at once.”

Bensley said several options could help improve conditions at the jail, including contracting with Correct Care Solutions to provide a full-time psychiatric nurse practitioner or clinical therapist at the jail. That individual would be on-site 40 hours a week and provide care for the 70 percent of the inmate population with mental health issues who are not Community Mental Health clients or in immediate crisis mode. However, Bensley cautioned commissioners that early cost estimates for such a position range from $80,000 to $240,000 due to a limited number of providers in the region. “It’s hard to find these people in northern Michigan to provide that service in the jail,” he said.

Bensley said his department is also looking at converting existing conferences rooms in the jail into medical isolation cells that could be more easily monitored by corrections officers. “This is an immediate need,” he said, adding the project would also free up observation cells in the jail’s intake area. The sheriff also recommended the county formalize its Criminal Justice Coordination Committee (CJCC) – an ad hoc group formed in 2014 to analyze community needs at the jail and make planning recommendations – and hire a project management consultant to oversee that program as well as the implementation of industry best practices. Noting that a 2004 study anticipated Grand Traverse County would need a 250-bed jail by 2020, Bensley concluded his presentation by urging commissioners to more aggressively pursue long-discussed plans to build a new jail.

“I don’t think anybody here would argue (against the fact) we need a new facility,” Bensley said. He added that commissioners “should not go through these studies again and run into the same dead end that we keep running into,” encouraging the board to get realistic cost estimates for the project and determine if a new jail – which he estimated could cost in the $27 million range – would be paid for through a bond or millage. “The funding mechanism must be addressed first,” he said.

Commissioners affirmed their interest in moving forward more urgently with planning for a new jail. “Now is the time,” said Commissioner Cheryl Gore Follette. “It is the time for us to put this as a priority, something that has been talked about and talked about and talked about.” Commissioners agreed Wednesday to form a jail ad hoc committee that will include Commissioners Sonny Wheelock and Tom Mair, plus jail staff and other community members. That committee will tackle as an immediate first order of business exploring expanding Correct Care Solutions’ contract at the jail to increase mental health services. The group will then begin working on funding estimates and options for a new jail.

County Finance Director Dean Bott told commissioners bond payments on multiple county debts are expected to drop off over the next several years, opening up room in the budget for another project. “You have funds in your current budget…to make a debt payment that would fund the construction of a jail,” Bott said. Wheelock called conditions in the jail “deplorable” and said county staff working in the facility deserved a better solution as soon as possible. “We all know what the condition of our jail is right now,” he said. “We have to figure out some way to get this new jail built, and we need it soon.”

Commissioner Bob Johnson agreed, saying both short-term solutions like increasing mental health services and long-term solutions like constructing a new jail should be pursued. “We have a chance now to maybe turn around some lives, but we are failing miserably at it…this board needs to probably take a stand and say let’s move forward on doing what we can do,” Johnson said. “Because that’s not satisfactory, to have that many people asking for help and not getting it.” 

Also at Wednesday’s meeting…
> Commissioners approved applying for two grants for Boardman Lake and River improvement projects, including a $300,000 application to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant to help complete the Boardman Lake trail loop. The grant requires a $300,000 funding match, with local monies available through the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. A second grant request for $165,000 to the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund would pay for a new footbridge to be constructed connecting the Lone Pine ADA Trail at the county’s Natural Education Reserve with the construction access road along the west side of the new Boardman River channel. A required $55,000 match would be funded through other grants and private donations.

> The county’s animal control department will get a much-needed equipment upgrade after commissioners approved a request from the department to purchase a new 2018 Ram truck with custom kennel box for $30,000. The request was “budget neutral,” according to Environmental Health Director Dan Thorell, since the department saved funds the past two months due to reduced staff and also has designated contingency funds from which to pull for the purchase. The new truck – which will become the department’s third vehicle – will help serve increased staff in the department after commissioners recently approved raising funding levels for animal control.

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