Chance meeting could save county millions on new jail facility

NATCHEZ — A chance meeting between Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten and the man whose company constructed the correctional facility off U.S 84 in Adams County could wind up saving the county millions of dollars on a new jail and law enforcement complex.

Patten briefed the Adams County Board of Supervisors today on that meeting with Buddy Johns, president of Modcorr Modern Correctional Solutions based in Galveston, Texas.

After their meeting at a conference in Oklahoma, Johns drove to Natchez with an engineer who works with him. They and Patten toured about 90 pods that are not in use now at the correctional facility owned by Core Civic and discussed retrofitting them for use by Adams County.

A pod is a building that holds two to four inmates each.

“This guy flew into New Orleans and drove to Natchez to meet with us. He brought his engineer with him to go out there and inspect those pods. We walked through probably 90 of them,” Patten said. “He said he would stand on his work and go in and refurbish what he needed to refurbish for us to utilize those pods.

“If you were to build those pods right now, those two-to-four man cells would cost you between $160,000 and $180,000 a pod. He said he could refurbish those pods from between $12,000 and $15,000 per pod, which could save us millions on building a new facility. We are talking about millions that he could save us,” Patten said.

He said Core Civic officials have offered multiple times to donate those unused pods to the county to build a jail. Patten said Johns plans another trip to Natchez with a team of engineers to examine each pod more thoroughly and provide exact figures on what it would cost to refurbish them.

“Based on what he saw on his initial visit, there are enough pods out there on those grounds right now to build our whole housing unit,” Patten said. “I will make sure to notify each of you when he comes back in September so you can come out and meet this guy yourselves.”

Board of Supervisors President Kevin Wilson, who represents District 2 in the county, asked Patten if he had any drawings as to how the pods would come together to form a county jail. Patten said he had no drawings yet.

“We will need to wait to see what the needs assessment says,” he said.

Supervisors voted unanimously to proceed with the jail’s needs assessment, pending county attorney Scott Slover’s approval of the contract language.

District 3 Supervisor Angela Hutchins asked Jamie Holloway, a municipal advisor with Government Consultants Inc., to attend Monday’s meeting and discuss ways the county could finance a jail.

Holloway said most municipalities building jails now use lease-to-own financing, known as COPS or Certificate of Participation, rather than general obligation bonds.

“You need to know how much the jail is going to cost you and how much it’s going to cost to operate it,” he said. “The vast majority are going the lease-purchase route now because it doesn’t go against your bond rating.”

He said Vicksburg, Hinds County, and Pike County — each building new correctional facilities — are financing the construction using the lease-purchase route.

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