City votes unanimously in support of new jail

By AMANDA RICKER Chronicle Staff Writer 

            Giving Bozeman criminals who’ve gotten caught driving drunk or have a warrant out for their arrest a get out of jail free card isn’t acceptable, the Bozeman City Commission said Monday night.

For that reason, the commission unanimously voted to support Gallatin County’s plans for a new jail.

Voters will decide whether to approve the $32 million loan needed to build it on Nov. 4, during the general election. Voters have twice rejected jail bond issues in the past.

The current jail has more than a 90-percent release rate on jailable offenses, Commissioner Sean Becker said. It’s well known among the community.

            “They cite DUI offenders and take them home to go out and commit DUIs again in the same night,” Commissioner Eric Bryson said. “We don’t have the ability to appropriately sanction people.”

            There’s no room in the jail to put DUI offenders or those who have outstanding warrants. There’s an excess of 1,100 warrants that have gone unserved, Bozeman Police Chief Mark Tymrak said.

            Gallatin County currently pays $55 per day, per inmate to house prisoners in Broadwater County’s jail. The county also pays $250 per prisoner to transport them there. That amounts to about $530,000 a year, Gallatin County Sheriff Jim Cashell said.

Commissioner Jeff Krauss did raise one concern about the cost of a new jail.

            “If we pass this jail, and start paying for this jail, what will the inmate cost per day be including interest and payment on the debt?” he asked.

            Cashell said he didn’t know.

            The daily rate for the current jail per inmate is $116, Krauss said.

            “So if our current facility is $116 a day, it seems like we’re getting a bargain at $55 a day somewhere else,” he said.

            Nevertheless, Krauss said jails aren’t an investment. They’re an expense.

“We can’t put a person in jail when they need to go to jail, and to me, that’s the argument in a nutshell,” he said.

The jail was built in 1982 and designed to hold 39 prisoners n 33 men and six women. On average, the jail holds 62 inmates and an additional 22 are sent to Broadwater County’s jail, Tymrak said.

Inmates double bunk or do “whatever it takes to make it work,” Cashell said.

He said the only reason the county has been able to avoid litigation is because the people who work at the jail are good at what they do.

The new jail would be designed to hold 160 prisoners and be located at the same place, at the Law & Justice Center. If approved, homeowners with a taxable property value of $150,000 will see an annual property-tax increase of about $37.

Amanda Ricker can be reached at aricker@dailychronicle.com or 582-2628.

Reader Comments