COEUR d'ALENE — Setting aside $12 million for a jail expansion without raising taxes or asking voters to approve a bond may have been the easy part for Kootenai County commissioners.

Deciding on increased staffing levels, which will be an ongoing expense in the budget and needed with more space, could be stickier when two-thirds of the board of commissioners will be new faces on Jan. 9.

Kootenai County Sheriff's Office Maj. Kim Edmondson said the jail has six vacancies just to bring the facility up to full staff and will need to hire an additional 17 as a result of the expansion.

She estimated the annual cost for those 23 needed positions will be $1.3 million.

"This (23 people) is the number of people we'll need to have ready going in (to the expansion)," she said. "There would be no phasing in this group (after the expansion is built)."

The financial pain of increasing staffing as a result of the expansion would be eased perhaps by not having to transport some inmates to other facilities because of overcrowding.

The county spent $477,742 during fiscal 2015 on housing inmates elsewhere and $659,416 in fiscal 2014. Those figures do not include transportation costs and personnel time to transport inmates.

Deciding on jail staffing will be one of the first tasks existing commissioner Marc Eberlein and newcomers Bob Bingham and Chris Fillios will face in the new year. The topic is already creating discussion between the existing commissioners and newcomers.

In an email Bingham wrote to the current commissioners, Fillios and Sheriff Ben Wolfinger, Bingham said the increased staffing question is causing him to pause as he gets up to speed on county topics.

"Absent the costing analysis, my concern is that we might be going backward rather than forward with the new jail and this might be worth a closer examination from the aspect of overall cost (for example, getting it built and staffing it vs. housing out of county)," Bingham wrote. "We only have $1 million in new development property tax projected to come in, which obviously will not pay for the jail staffing let alone anything or anyone else in the county for the next fiscal year."

Decisions ahead

Commissioner Dan Green responded by saying the new board will be able to discuss jail staffing soon and may even choose to go in a different direction on the jail than the existing board.

"My only input is that a tax increase is always on the table as a consideration when we face the tough decisions of compensation, benefits and the myriad of mandated services we are required to provide," Green wrote to Bingham. "You can also factor in looking forward to the issue of out-of-county housing costs continuing to rise, other jails not having space, the liability of transporting inmates great distances and many other issues related to housing inmates."

Commissioner David Stewart responded by saying he agrees jail staffing remains a tough question that will need to be ironed out by the new board.

"In my opinion, this project would require a multi-year growth plan that has not been addressed by (the majority) of this board," Stewart wrote.

Edmondson said the staffing needs are based on a class county employees attended that was put on by the National Institute of Corrections on jail standards.

She said the new commissioners will have some time to make a staffing decision since the groundbreaking of the jail expansion is slated for late April or early May and the construction timeline is 14 to 18 months.

However, with the time it takes to hire and train the new employees and make the addition to the budget, it's not a decision that can be postponed for too long, Edmondson said.

Edmondson said with out-of-state facilities increasing their fees to house Kootenai County inmates on Jan. 1, $900,000 was budgeted for such purpose this fiscal year.

"There will still need to be about a half-million dollars that the county will have to come up with (for increased staffing), and that will be up to the commissioners," she said.

The construction cost for the jail expansion will not raise taxes because it will be funded with the county's fund balance.

Contractor selected

Meanwhile, Sletten Companies from Las Vegas has been chosen from six companies as the construction manager/general contractor (CMGC) for the jail project.

"By having a CMGC involved in the pre-construction budgeting process, it reduces the change orders which will save money," said Shawn Riley, Kootenai County's buildings and grounds director.

Riley said even though the firm is from outside the area, it will hire local subcontractors to do most of the work.

The jail expansion will be 30,000 square feet, including 20,000 square feet of finished detention space. It will include 84 beds for felons, a 10-bed inmate worker dormitory, 28 beds for inmates who need medical assistance and a new laundry room.

About 8,000 square feet of the space will be for future use.

The current jail near the fairgrounds opened in 1987 with 98 beds. Through remodels it was expanded to 127 beds. The latest addition, which opened in 2002, increased capacity to 327.

The number of inmates has fluctuated between 280 and 400 in recent months. County officials say the biggest demand is for hard cells to house felons.