Construction of the Perry County Joint Justice Center is nearing completion as Zoellner Construction Co. and subcontractors feel confident they will meet their fall deadline.
The Perry County Joint Justice Center (PCJJC) is moving ever closer to completion as crews with Zoellner Construction Co. and subcontractors work steadily to finish the project by its fall completion target.
The Perry County Commission unanimously approved an order in December 2020 to place a referendum question on the April 2021 ballot, asking whether county residents wanted to impose a capital improvements sales tax of half of 1 percent for 20 years to fund a new joint justice center.
On April 6, 2021, less than 17 percent of Perry County’s registered voters approved, by better than 62.6 percent, the Proposition C.O.P.S. ballot measure, which approved the construction of the PCJJC in Perryville.
Groundbreaking for the PCJJC was held Jan. 29, and the project has moved swiftly since then. In fact, according to Zoellner Construction CEO Matt Zoellner, the project is slightly ahead of schedule because very little time was lost due to weather delays.
He said, “I can’t foresee may come up that might change our schedule, but I think we have a good chance of finishing most of it sometime in October.”
If the project is completed on time, the various departments and courts will likely begin moving into the PCJJC sometime after the first of the year.
Financing
According to County Clerk Jared Kutz, after 20 years from the date the tax is first imposed, it would continue at one-eighth of 1 percent (0.00125) in perpetuity to provide funding for the center's construction, maintenance and related expenses. All of the funds would be used for the proposed justice facility's construction and maintenance.
Asked last week if he remains confident that the sales tax approved by voters will provide enough revenue to cover the cost of construction and continued maintenance of the PCJJC, Kutz said, “You know, combined, sales taxes are unique because, based on the number that you anticipate revenues to come in, it takes a sales tax a couple of years to catch up to what that sales tax is. That’s because there are bankruptcies in there, and there are administrative things that go on with businesses that take a while. Right now, we have a half-cent sales tax for general revenue and a half-cent sales tax for the PCJJC. Last year, the PCJJC tax was about $100,000 behind general revenue. So, it hasn't caught up yet. It will. I think it takes about seven years to catch up. Do I believe there will be enough there to take care of this? Yes, I do.
“What we built into our budget was maintenance operations. Right now, we manage those things with general operating funds at the jail and the courthouse where the courts are held. We built some of those general operating expenses into what can be paid for from the tax, so there was a cushion for the tax. If the tax doesn't produce as much as we thought, those operational things will be paid for with general funds as they are now, or law enforcement sales tax funds or different things. That's a separate tax from the PCJJC tax. So, do I believe we're going to be OK going forward with the annual payments? There will be two years — I believe it's 2027 and 2028 — where I don't think we'll have to get creative, but we will potentially have to use other tax revenues to hit everything, but it's anticipated. And if you can anticipate that and know that you're planning for it, it's simply a movement of money and use of other general funds.”
Many in city and county government have described the roughly 62,500-square-foot building as a one-stop shop, which is a fair assessment.
The approximately 6,377-square-foot basement will house Emergency Management and the Emergency Operation Center, as well as storage for the facility's departments, the mechanical and technology room and maintenance operations.
The first floor, which is around 38,025 square feet, will be the new home for the Perryville Police Department, Perry County Sheriff’s Department, coroner, meeting and training spaces, jail intake and support, employee breakroom, law enforcement locker room and additional law enforcement support spaces and public restrooms.
The approximately 17,548-square-foot second floor will house the prosecuting attorney’s office, the Perry County Circuit Clerk’s office and office space for circuit and associate court judges. It will also house court record storage, two large courtrooms with trial capacity, a law library, public attorney-client rooms, jury rooms and public restrooms.
The Perry County Commission and the Perryville Board of Aldermen decided to construct the state-of-the-art facility to better meet the needs of county and city departments and offices housed there while increasing operational efficiencies.
Presiding Commissioner
“It’s impressive, it really is,” said Presiding Commissioner Mike Sauer. There’s nothing like it in Perry County. I don’t think there are a lot of places like it anywhere else. A few new jails have been built in other places, combining a few things, but I don’t think anybody has jails, courtrooms, and all this other stuff in it. We know nobody is doing the sheriff’s department and city police. It’s taken a lot to get here.
According to Sauer, one of the county's greatest needs is an updated jail.
“Our jail facility is horrible,” he said. “It is not a terribly old facility, but they were outgrown when they moved in. It wasn’t set up to house as many people. You have people taking showers all day long and all that steam. They didn’t put in a very good system to pull moisture out, so we’ve had mold issues. We’ve got vents that are rusted to pieces from all the moisture.
“There are also people stacked on top of people — people sleeping on the floor — we have to do something. That got the ball rolling. Involved in all that, when they built the facility, 911 didn’t exist, so 911 dispatch moved in there. There are probably 500 wires dangling in the ceiling and running down the computer equipment. Something needed to be done, so we discussed, ‘How do we go about this?”
As the county commissioners continued discussing the possibilities, the project kept growing.
“We could combine the two dispatches and put them in here,” Sauer recalled. “And then we can put the jail in there. And then talking with Cape County, sometime in the future, they're saying — I think it's by 2030 — you will no longer be able to chain gang prisoners together and walk them to the courthouse out in public. If you do, you're going to have to have them in a suit and tie and take in one at a time. We thought, ‘While we're doing this, why don't we just put the courtroom in this building with it?’ If you do that, then you bring along the circuit clerk. Then you bring in the prosecuting attorney. The building just kept going like this until it got humongous.
“We finally said, ‘OK, now we have everybody in this building that we need.’ An inmate will come out of his cell, be escorted to an elevator, go up to the second floor where the courtroom is, come out of the elevator, and be put in another cell. And whenever it's time for him to appear in court, they'll release him from the cell and take him to the courtroom. And if he's going to have to go back into jail, he'll come back into that room, go back down and right back into his cell. If the judge releases him, he can walk out the front door. It's a really neat concept.”
Sauer said, “Once everybody moves into the new building, we’ll discuss what we’re going to do with the old courthouse. We're not going to let it sit there empty. So, we're in the early stages of finding out how much open space we will have, who has the need, and who can fit in there.”
Various county and city employees offered their thoughts on what advantages they expect to see with their move to the PCJJC.
Prosecuting Attorney
Prosecuting attorney Caitlin Pistorio said, “To me, the biggest change will be the protection of victims. Unfortunately, the way we do things right now, the witnesses and victims — whether it's child victims or adult victims — sit out in the same hallway as the defendants, their families and other witnesses do. There's a thing called the Victim’s Bill of Rights, and one of those rights is that victims will be safe and secure throughout the process. To say that our current facilities lack safety and security for victims is an understatement. So, one of the biggest changes we’ll have is on my side of the facility. We will have secured waiting spaces for victims and witnesses who feel like they need extra protection and/or security. That way they're not sitting next to their abuser’s family or their abuser.”
Associate Circuit Judge
Associate Circuit Judge Craig Brewer is also looking forward to the increased security once the jail and courts have been moved to the PCJJC.
You're going to have the jail within the Justice Center, and that will keep prisoners from being exposed to the public for their safety,” he said. “Those folks are going to be transported to courtrooms through a secure elevator so they will not see the light of day as opposed to what occurs where they have to march these individuals up through the courthouse square. That was always something that caused me concern. You're marching these individuals who are incarcerated through the middle of the town, through the middle of the courthouse, through where all the regular patrons are as well. So that's going to be alleviated. I think that's going to be a big plus for us, not to mention, and probably first and foremost, the safety and security of the court system as well. We're going to have a secure area where the public at large will not be allowed.
“It helps protect the judges. It helps protect the clerks. These individuals don't have to use the same restroom as our staff. So, I think the safety and security issues will be a huge benefit for my staff, the circuit clerk staff, and me as we go forward. The configuration of the courtrooms relative to the clerk and the judge's station is also going to be a tremendous benefit because, right now, the circuit clerk's office is bifurcated between two hallways. On one side, we have criminals. On the other side, we have civil. Now, they’re all going to be in the same general area along with the receptionist, who will be able to take payments, give information, talk to litigants, and do things along those lines. It’s going to be for the sake of ease and communication with the public at large. I think it's going to be an important benefit as well. But those are big things that I think we're very excited about. Not to mention that we're in a building that's 120 years old.”
County Sheriff
Perry County Sheriff Jason Klaus believes his department will see many improvements with its move to the PCJJC.
“Our operation has grown tremendously over the last 10 years or more, so I needed an expanded room for my patrol officers,” he said. “We were packaging evidence on the same table where they take their breaks and eat lunch. It was a concern for our detectives as well. We don't have an interview room in this building, so you have to kick other people out when you're bringing somebody in for an interview. When you displace them, they're not as productive. All of that changes in the new building. We’ll be adding a specific evidence processing room, an expanded evidence storage room, additional office space and more square footage.
“We will see the biggest improvements in the jail. Currently, our jail has a 40-bed max capacity. Our five-year average is around 36 inmates. Last year, we had as high as 55, so that means there are a lot of people sleeping on the floor, which is a huge safety issue for my jail staff and for those individuals who are here. The new facility will take us up to 80, which will allow us to segregate inmates a little bit better based on their crimes and their specific individual needs. We will be able to hold individuals for pretrial a lot differently than we are now — specifically individuals that may have a psychiatric or suicide concern.”
Klaus noted that two new rooms at the PCJJC will allow his department to better utilize the abilities of two recent hires: a certified peer specialist and a reentry coordinator.
“They are going to work hand-in-hand with our inmates to try to get them treatment while they're incarcerated and then reenter them into the community,” he said. “They will have a program room where we can bring the inmates in and out to do Alcoholics Anonymous-type classes, Narcotics Anonymous-type classes, GED-type classes and job-related classes.”
Klaus believes his department’s larger kitchen at the PCJJC will also be a significant improvement.
“Our kitchen in this building is literally a hallway with a stove on one side and the sink on the other,” he said. “Our kitchen staff is working in the middle of the hallway as we're going back and forth, which is not great. The new building has a really nice kitchen area with up-to-date kitchen supplies. We’re very excited about the whole project. There are so many benefits to this.
“From our department’s standpoint, it’s giving our personnel a new facility. There’s an excitement to that. There are obviously huge benefits to giving them a safer facility. It will also be safer for the individuals incarcerated. Bringing all of the stakeholders in the PCJJC under one roof will be a model facility for the rest of the state. Communities of similar size that need additions and renovations will look to our justice center as that model.”
Kraus is confident that the community will see many benefits from the PCJJC.
“Whether you're going to the police department, the sheriff's office, the prosecutor’s office, the courthouse, you're making multiple stops,” he said. Now, we will have one address for almost everything related to criminal justice.
The sheriff also expects to see improved relationships between the various departments.
“With all the departments in one place, you're talking to each other in the hallway,” Klaus said. “We're sharing a breakroom. We’ll better understand how we are vital to creating a more effective and efficient criminal justice system. We’ll see each other every day under one roof, as opposed to maybe once every week or two. Better communication will create many new opportunities we haven't envisioned yet.”
Police Captain
While the PCJJC will almost exclusively house county departments and services, the Perryville Police Department will also be making its new home there. Captain Ryan Worthington agreed with Sheriff Klaus that the move will allow for more interaction and better communication between the police and sheriff’s departments.
“We are going to be able to work more closely with the sheriff's department since we'll be in the same building,” he said. “That's going to improve relations between both departments immensely. The added benefit is that we'll have the prosecuting attorney's office right upstairs, which will give us much easier access to meet with the prosecutor if needed.
Worthington also looks forward to having the jail in the same building as his department and the court system.
“There have been many times where we need to interview someone incarcerated within the jail,” he said. “So, being able to stay in the same building will also be very beneficial for us.
You won't have to remove the prisoners and transport them to court. They'll stay in the secure building at all times. It’s definitely going to be a positive for the community to have everything they need for law enforcement and the court system in one building. The layout’s put together very well, and we’re looking forward to moving in and calling it home.
