Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 26, 1992                   TAG: 9203260162
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

REGIONAL JAIL TO GET MORE STUDY BEFORE AID SOUGHT

The other matters include how many localities will participate in the jail and where it would be located.

Members of a regional jail committee contacted legislators while the 1992 General Assembly was in session to try to eliminate a moratorium on any state funding for regional jails until mid-1994.

"But it appears that we were unsuccessful. It is in the Department of Corrections budget bill," Assistant Radford City Manager Bob Lloyd told committee members at a meeting here Wednesday.

Other localities represented were Pulaski, Floyd, Pulaski, Wythe and Giles counties.

The Giles County Board of Supervisors agreed last week to join the others in helping to pay for a needs assessment being compiled by the New River Valley Planning District Commission.

The needs assessment was the first step toward a regional jail when state money was available. The committee still is approaching it that way and plans to approach legislators in the region about introducing a bill exempting the region from the moratorium on state funding.

"We don't know what this board's going to do or even what it's going to consist of until this needs assessment is over," Lloyd said.

But, assuming the study will show a need for a regional jail, the board will work toward having an exemption bill drafted for the 1993 legislative session.

If localities reach the point of spending money on building plans, "you just can't do that on a guess that the money's going to come," Floyd County Administrator Randy Arno said.

"It doesn't give anybody much incentive to work on these things that have to be done," agreed Dave Rundgren, planning commission executive director. "It's one of those stroke-of-the-pen things where you can say you're saving money."

Rundgren hopes to have information for the needs assessment when the committee next meets in May. .

The localities have sent all this information to the state but Rundgren has to get information from each locality. He has been unable to pry it loose at the state level as he had hoped when he agreed to do the assessment.

"It's like pulling teeth," he said. "But, in the absence of it, we're moving ahead."