COEUR d'ALENE — A $12 million expansion of the Kootenai County jail is moving forward, but without any indication how the larger facility will be staffed.

An additional 23 employees will be needed for the expanded jail, the construction of which is being paid for from the county's fund balance. During a Friday afternoon meeting of the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners, also attended by members of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, projections were shared on the potential savings from no longer needing to transport excess

prisoners to facilities outside the county.

"(But) the elephant in the room is how do you pay to staff it," Undersheriff Dan Mattos said. "It's not logical to build something if you don't know how to staff it."

"And it's not safe," Sheriff Ben Wolfinger added.

The estimated annual cost for the positions is $1.3 million, but no solutions to funding the positions were mentioned during the meeting.

Additional employees can’t be hired once the construction of the expansion is complete because detention deputies need to first be trained and certified by the state.

A two-year plan to begin phasing in the additional employees was presented last year to the previous board of commissioners, Wolfinger said. If the plan had gained any traction, according to Wolfinger, additional detention deputies would have been hired this year and sent for training.

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 will be for future use.

Commissioners revisited two other ideas for the jail during the meeting — doing nothing and continuing to transport extra prisoners out of county; or floating a bond so taxpayers would pay for a completely new jail facility. Since it is unknown whether jails outside the county will continue to have the ability to house excess prisoners from Kootenai County, and the costs of transporting those prisoners will continue to rise, that option is a non-starter, according to both the commissioners and sheriff's officials.

It was also mentioned that a bond to build a new jail facility was voted down by Kootenai County residents three times.

Several times during Friday’s meeting, Commissioner Bob Bingham asked if there are any hard figures associated with staffing the expanded jail, as well as what the overall expense to taxpayers would be. Neither question was answered.

"I still don't have any numbers, and I am not happy about that," Bingham told The Press after the meeting adjourned.

Commissioner Marc Eberlein told The Press the next step in the construction process will be to continue working with Las Vegas-based construction firm Sletten Companies to create a final plan and cost analysis of the project. When asked how the additional staffing would be funded, Eberlein said "that is unknown."