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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 28, 1995                   TAG: 9501300022
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER AND RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RADFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

1 REGIONAL JAIL AS CHEAP TO BUILD AS 6 LITTLE LOCKUPS, LOCALITIES TOLD

Six localities pondering a regional jail would have to come up with a total of more than $20 million if they each built a local jail to handle future prisoner loads.

The total cost of building six local jails is about the same as one regional jail. The difference is that the state would pay 50 percent of a regional jail's cost, compared with 25 percent of local jails. A regional jail authority would borrow to pay the other 50 percent.

That borrowed money would be repaid over time from per-day charges to the localities that send prisoners to the regional jail.

Those figures have been sent to the city of Radford and counties of Floyd, Giles, Pulaski, Grayson and Tazewell by Radford Assistant City Manager Bob Lloyd, who is chairman of the regional jail board that has spent several years developing plans for the jail. The figures are based on the number of jail beds that each locality is projected to need by 2000, which total 360 - the number to be built in the regional jail.

Lloyd said localities probably could decide to withdraw from the project as late as the latter part of this year. But they must agree to create a jail authority anyway, because the project can go no further until that happens.

``Afterwards, the project must go to the Department of Criminal Justice Services for recommendation and thereafter to the Department of Corrections and its board for approval and recommendation to the governor,'' Lloyd said in his letter to the localities.

The plan would go to the Department of Criminal Justice Services in March and be submitted to the Department of Corrections in April. If approval came by May, the jail authority would apply in June for its half of the funding in the form of a loan from Rural Economic and Community Development, formerly the Farmers Home Administration.

Lloyd said the application must be made soon if the localities hope to take advantage of a lower interest rate. ``The present Congress proposes to change the regulations and may make currently available interest rates rise significantly.''

Approval for inclusion of the project in the Department of Corrections budget is anticipated by September, as part of the total state budget to be submitted to the governor in November.

``It is important to remember that none of the six participating communities will bear the cost of any construction,'' Lloyd said. ``Amortization of the local costs will be paid by the authority from revenue ... which will be paid on a per diem basis over the period of the debt. The state is legally required to pay half of construction costs.''

The regional jail authority would own the new jail, Lloyd said, as well as the six satellite facilities that would replace local jails in each community.

by CNB