ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
Bedford County's on-again, off-again flirtation with the Blue Ridge Regional Jail ended Wednesday when the last of four localities voted to tie the knot with Bedford again.
The Halifax County Board of Supervisors joined Campbell County and the cities of Bedford and Lynchburg in voting to readmit Bedford County into their regional jail. Now all that's left is the nuptial agreement - a formal contract to be signed over the next month by all the localities.
Bedford County's jail isn't overcrowded now, but it soon will be, according to Department of Corrections projections.
"We either had to build something to handle the additional daily inmate population by the year 2000-01, or we had to get into the regional jail," Sheriff Mike Brown said. "Now that we're a part of it, I look forward to getting on with the process."
Bedford County will pay $367,000 per year for 69 beds in the regional jail system, which includes space at a new regional jail complex to be built in Lynchburg. Prisoners awaiting trial locally still would be held in the existing Bedford County Jail.
If the terms of the last regional jail contract involving Bedford County remain the same, the jail system will buy the existing sheriff's office from the county, and the county will build a new sheriff's office and dispatch center across from the county nursing home.
Some of the localities that voted to readmit Bedford County expressed concern that bringing Bedford County back into the regional jail could result in a slight increase in their per diem rates. As a member of the regional jail, Bedford County would pay less for jail space than nonmember localities that might rent beds from the regional jail.
However, Halifax County Administrator Dan Sleeper said, "When you don't rent any beds at all, it's to our county's benefit to have Bedford in, because then the costs are shared."
Per diem costs are expected to average $16 per prisoner per locality. Bedford County's current per diem cost is about $12 to $12.50 per prisoner, Brown said.
Bedford County voted in November 1994 to join Lynchburg and other localities in building the regional jail system, which is to be partially funded by the state. The Bedford County Board of Supervisors voted to leave the jail in June 1994, expressing skepticism over whether the state would continue funding the jail system as promised.
But Bedford County had promised its state-leased Camp 24 jail annex to the regional jail. When Bedford County pulled out, the state Department of Corrections announced that it would cancel the county's lease on the jail annex and give it to the regional jail by the end of the decade.
That left Bedford County scrambling for jail space. In recent months, the supervisors discussed building an addition onto the county jail, even though that option would be more expensive than joining the regional jail. Bedford County decided to rejoin the regional jail last month after the General Assembly passed legislation that would deny state funding for construction costs and correctional employees for localities that build new jail space.
About 50 of the 86 employees of the Bedford County Sheriff's Office are state-funded correctional employees, and their job funding could have been affected by the legislation.
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