Bay County officials move forward with new substance abuse treatment facility

BAY COUNTY, Fla. ( WMBB ) – After several delays, Bay County officials are moving forward with a new substance abuse treatment facility at the Bay County Jail.

County commissioners awarded a contract to the builder on Tuesday.

The Bay County Jail’s lifeline drug rehabilitation program has been around for several decades.
The program is mandated by the court. This expansion will double the size of the current treatment program.

Currently, it can treat 40 male and 20 female inmates.

“So our goal for several years has been to build a lifeline drug treatment dorm that would allow us to almost double that to 100 to 120 beds. So the funding has been an issue,” Sheriff Tommy Ford said.

Most of the money has come from opioid settlements. Initially, county officials estimated the expansion project would cost about $3 million. But all of the bids came back significantly higher.

With the help of a state grant, the county was able to re-bid the project. On Tuesday, county commissioners awarded the $4.3 million contract to Pensacola-based company, Dominguez Design-build.

“We’re just looking forward to constructing this building and moving forward with the process. So we can help as many people as we can,” Bay County Commissioner Bill Dozier said.

Commissioners also voted to participate in a national opioid settlement involving Kroger.

“What we talked about today is a settlement with Kroger and as we move forward, progress is ready to go ahead and finalize the agreement. And today we just did. We put all the pieces in place to move forward from our part with the settlement,” Dozier said.

They don’t know how much they’ll get, but the commissioner agreed to put the money toward the drug treatment dorm.

“Nationally in the past three years, drug overdoses have only decreased by about 3%, in Bay County drug overdoses in the unincorporated area have decreased about 65%. We won’t take full credit for that. But I do think some of the things that we are doing are working on getting those drugs off the street to holding the dealers accountable for that and overdoses,” Ford said.

Any leftover Kroger money will go to other healthcare programs across Bay County.

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