Adams Co. looks at jail improvements with available funding

RITZVILLE — Adams County officials have advertised for a consultant to conduct a study of the Adams County Jail, with the goal of suggesting options for refurbishing the facility with the available funds.

Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner said that’s one of the first steps to reopening the jail, which was closed in May 2022. Currently, inmates are housed in Benton and Franklin counties.

“(The consultant) is going to tell us, ‘Here’s the money that you have, here’s what you can do with it,’” Wagner said.

County officials have been seeking funding, and have received money from the state capital budget and some federal funding, Wagner said. The bigger problem is that the facility would be understaffed were it open.

Six new jailers have completed training, Wagner wrote in a letter released Friday. But in the meantime, a corrections deputy was hired by another agency. That left eight corrections deputies and the jail administrator position to fill. Kelly Watkins recently was hired to fill that role, Wagner wrote.

Eight corrections officers are not enough given the way the existing jail is built, the sheriff said.

“It’s just not feasible,” he said.

The existing jail is a semi-detached portion of the Adams County Courthouse, with a separate entrance off North Washington Street. It was closed following an inmate’s attack on another inmate and a corrections officer that left both seriously injured.

The facility was evaluated earlier this year by the National Institute of Corrections, Wagner wrote.

“(The evaluation) confirmed what we already knew, our facility is outdated and in need of modernization to ensure safe operation,” Wagner wrote.

The study also concluded that the jail was understaffed. Wagner said he has requested the hiring of nine additional corrections staff. The goal is to have two deputies working on every shift.

“We can’t run on single-man coverage anymore,” he said.

Legal mandates associated with officer and inmate safety must be complied with, Wagner said. There’s not really a way yet to determine how much a new jail would cost.

“There are just so many variables,” he said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.