Commission voting on whether to invite private bids for new county jail

Inmates wait in an area known as "the horseshoe" before being assigned a cell.

Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger vetoes the Hamilton County Commission's amended budget on June 22, 2015.

Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond

A private operator for Hamilton County's lockups could be chosen as soon as June or July if county commissioners vote Wednesday to keep the process moving forward.

The vote is whether to pay consultant Public Financial Management Inc. [PFM] $210,000 to identify and negotiate with private prison operators interested in building and/or operating a new Hamilton County Jail.

And while county leaders insist no decision has been made between the county owning and running its jail or handing it over to a private operator, the resolution up for a vote says PFM can earn a bonus up to $250,000 only if the county "executes final agreements with a private party."

County Mayor Jim Coppinger said in June he'd like to turn over all jail operations to Corrections Corporation of America, which operates the 1,062-bed Silverdale Detention Center.

He's said often the county is obliged to explore options that could save local taxpayers millions of dollars. That's why commissioners hired PFM in August to examine the county's corrections needs and make recommendations.

The downtown jail - old, inefficient and overcrowded - routinely fails inspections by the Tennessee Corrections Institute, the state's monitor for conditions in prisons and jails. It's getting by now only because county officials have promised in writing to take action to resolve the longstanding problems.

PFM in December recommended closing the present jail immediately, building a new prisoner processing center and adding nearly 600 beds at Silverdale, but didn't get into who should operate and maintain those beds.

That's what Wednesday's vote is about: finding out who's out there and whether they can do the job and save the county money.

The Silverdale contract, dating to 1984, was CCA's very first. Now the Nashville-based company owns or manages more than 80,000 beds in more than 70 facilities nationwide with a staff above 13,000, according to its website.

Two other big private corrections firms are GEO Group Inc., of Boca-Raton, Fla., and Management and Training Corp., based in Centerville, Utah.

Coppinger said Friday the county is due to renegotiate its per-diem rate with CCA in April and that the original 1984 contract is set to expire in the second half of the year. He said it's time to rethink the deal.

"We need to do a top-to-bottom review of this to see, first of all, what needs to be tweaked, what makes sense and what doesn't make sense," and see where the county can realize savings, he said.

Once PFM delivers its research, "then the decision will be made to go with privatization or whether we're going to end up with it [the jail] again."

The county mayor sees a lot of ways a private operator would save local taxpayers' money. The county wouldn't have to borrow at interest to build the new jail, and Coppinger said a private builder could do it for "several million dollars" less than the county could, though he didn't say how.

A private owner, he said, would have lower operating costs than the county and also would pay property taxes. "As you can imagine, that's huge," he said. And part of PFM's task will be to evaluate the value of the existing jail property and corrections assets and see how the county can use those in negotiations.

"This is a major cost to the taxpayers to incarcerate people who misbehave," Coppinger said. " We're trying to build schools. If there's a way to avoid the cost of building a jail, I think we'd be remiss in not trying to do that."

***

Except for Commissioner Tim Boyd, most of the nine county commissioners say they're on board with at least going forward with the PFM contract, if not committing right now to privatizing the jail.

At Wednesday's agenda session, Boyd raised several objections, calling the PFM contract a "boondoggle" by a company whose agenda is to promote and profit from public-private partnerships

He said the firm hadn't yet delivered any solid information, and asked for a delayed vote and a review of PFM's work by the finance committee, of which he is chairman.

"This has the potential of being very fiscally irresponsible," Boyd said.

No commissioner spoke in support, and Coppinger said Boyd hadn't been a part of the two-year process leading up to this point.

As for public-private partnerships, Coppinger said, "That's what's made this county and that's what's made this city the place we are today."

Asked Friday whether they were ready to go forward with the next phase of the PFM contract, most commissioners sounded more or less like Commissioner Randy Fairbanks.

He said, "My gut feeling right now is that I'd like to see us move on with the study - not to say which direction we're going in but it's a tough decision any time you're spending that kind of money."

Several pointed out that Wednesday's agenda session also included a school construction bid that was more than 30 percent higher than original estimates because of rising construction costs.

"I'm not going to prolong something if prolonging it is going to cost more in the end," Commissioner Sabrena Turner-Smedley said.

Chairman Chester Bankston emailed his fellow commissioners, asking if they felt they had enough information to vote or wanted to go along with Boyd's request for a delay.

Several commissioners said they reminded him the email violated the state's open meetings law, which requires elected officials to deliberate in public. Bankston said he pulled the email after realizing he'd made a mistake.

He said his own position is for saving the taxpayers' money.

"If this will save the 'X' millions of dollars like I'm being told, I'm all for it," he said.

Commissioner Greg Beck, who as a court officer has been inside the Hamilton County Jail, said, "I'd just rather not be in the business of jails any longer. Whatever I can do to get us out of that business, I want to do it."

Sheriff Jim Hammond, too, said he's comfortable with the process and that the county desperately needs a modern, safe and efficient lockup.

Fears were raised for the future of jail employees if a private operator took over, but Coppinger said all workers would be promised jobs with the new owner and Hammond said he'll fight to be sure they're taken care of.

"I would want to ensure the present employees continue along their career path until they retire, quit or whatever," he said.

"I know there's a lot of angst, a lot of rumors, 'we're all going to lose our jobs.' That is not true at this point and I don't think it's going to be true any time in the future," Hammond said.

Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.