An expansion of the Yellowstone County Detention Facility will cost $175 million along with $20 million a year for operational costs.
Those are the figures that the jail expansion committee presented to the commissioners at the Thursday discussion.
The committee is recommending running a $175 million bond issued over the next 20 years, along with a $20 million mill levy run indefinitely.
Watch jail story here:
On Tuesday, commissioners will vote on whether or not to place the bond issue and mill levy on the November ballot.
On Thursday, county officials led a tour of the facility— an eye-opening experience of the maximum-security side of the detention facility.
“That helps us maintain some level of security,” said Capt. Brandon Smart, detention facility commander.
The crowding gets even worse over on the minimum-security side, with 160 inmates in two sections with a capacity of 100.
“It just gets to be unsafe besides the overcrowding of it,” said Smart. “As you saw, we have inmates sleeping in bunks on the floor and one officer each to run each of those units, and we have to go through such a huge vetting process just for the inmates to make sure that they meet the criteria to be back there.”
The commissioners and the Billings Chamber of Commerce are using these tours to show the conditions at the jail and just how crowded it is.
And that's part of what they're using to tell people just why the bond and the mill levy are needed.
Smart says the number of inmates has been an issue for years, with 637 currently in the jail, which has a capacity of about 430.
The chamber’s women’s network went on a tour Thursday afternoon.
“They come out, their eyes are like, bug-eyed that they did, oh, you know, we, we had no idea what went on down here,” said Yellowstone County Commissioner Mark Morse. “And so I think it's just we have to get out and explain, educate, the community that there is no Plan B.”
Morse says they've spent years working to fix the problem.
“We had experts come in, help us with the jail master plan,” Morse said. “We've put a lot of thought into this.”
Those experts say these millions of dollars for expansion would increase capacity to 700, with the space to support more than 1500 in the future if needed.
“We need to make sure that the dangerous people in our community, whether they're being prosecuted by the US Attorney's Office or the County Attorney's Office, are held so they're not out affecting our community,” said County Attorney Scott Twito, R-Yellowstone County.
“The resolution that will be before us balances the taxpayer, but also with a number that will solve the problem and help further improve public safety in Yellowstone County,” said Commissioner Mike Waters, R-Yellowstone County.
Related: Yellowstone County commissioners debate $227 million bond to expand jail
