At the bare minimum, a new single-story jail and support areas with administrative and office areas for both the sheriff’s department and the FDPD will likely cost just under $48 million.

The Webster County Board of Supervisors received a presentation on a new LEC study that The Samuels Group, of West Des Moines, and Venture Architects, of Wisconsin, have been completing over the last several months.

The first thing the supervisors heard was about the specific problems with the current jail that lead to the need for a new LEC.

The current jail on the third floor of the LEC can hold a maximum of 56 inmates. It also has a linear design that creates safety and security problems, according to John Sabinash of Venture Architects.

“It tends to be a staff-intensive way of managing things and persons in custody,” he said. “It also becomes extremely camera dependent.”

In a linear design with the inmate cells running along tight hallways, sightlines into the cells become difficult, creating contraband problems, staffing inefficiencies and an increased potential for inmate and staff assaults.

The proposed design for a new jail has a “podular” set-up, with a central control room surrounded by two levels of cells in a horseshoe formation, allowing the staff in the control room to have a direct line of sight into each cell. The proposed design will house 82 beds in the pod, with the option of expanding to 139 beds with double-bunking if needed.

The inability to expand the jail floor to add beds for more inmates has caused significant issues over the last several years.

Last year, Webster County spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars to house jail inmates in other counties because the Webster County Jail lacked either the space or the staffing needed. That number does not include the cost to transport the inmates from those other county jails to Fort Dodge for court hearings and then back to the jails.

There’s also an inadequate number of cell subdivisions for proper inmate classification and special needs.

Sabinash also pointed out that the current booking area is unsafe because of many potential weapons in close proximity to new arrivals, and the booking, fingerprint and dress-out areas are all too small to function properly.

“One of the things that we look at relative to booking is we want a relatively clean environment that is void of opportunity for the individual who might be acting out to get access to equipment that is highly valuable, causing the opportunity to use it against staff as a weapon,” he said.

The aging building — built in 1983 and last remodeled in 2012 — is also running into a series of infrastructure problems. There have been multiple instances where water from the jail floor has made its way to the floor below, causing extensive damage to offices, courtrooms, staff areas and computer equipment.

The current Webster County Law Enforcement Center, located at 702 First Ave. S., is nearly 40 years old and the departments housed in the building have simply outgrown the space, Sheriff Luke Fleener said during a January meeting with the Fort Dodge City Council and the Board of Supervisors.

The potential tax impacts of building a new LEC on Webster County residents was also addressed.

If a $50 million 20-year general obligation bond referendum were to be approved by the voters of the county, a homeowner with a property value of $88,770 would pay approximately $70 in additional property taxes to fund the potential new LEC.

This project is still in its earliest stages and no action has been taken by either the Webster County Board of Supervisors or the Fort Dodge City Council.