Last year the County Commissioner Association of Ohio asked county sheriffs to submit needs for their facilities. Butler County Jail Warden Nick Fisher sent a letter outlining the need to expand the jail’s medical wing, which only has four cells. He estimated the cost at $10 million.
Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said officials have not done a deep dive into the project so the true cost is unknown, but if there is funding available, the sheriff will try to secure some because they deal with “lots and lots” of medical issues every day.
“The population we have is obviously an at-risk population for medical ailments to begin with, everything from opioids to detox. We have a brittle diabetic in here who has to be monitored four or five time a day, he has to be tested and you have to really stay on top of that to make sure they don’t get into dire straits,” Dwyer said.
“If I had somebody call me and said we’re going to bless you with a several million dollar grant for expansion, that would be it.”
Many programs require matching money, so there would first need to be consideration and conversation with the county commissioners.
Dwyer said they sent the request pre-coronavirus when the biggest pressure was rampant opioid epidemic, now the need has “quadrupled” because they are having to send COVID patients to a different building.
“If we had a better medical wing we could probably better deal with COVID,” Dwyer said.
John Leutz, assistant director of the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, said his agency and the Buckeye State Sheriffs Association spent two or three years creating a funding proposal and documenting the need. The bottom line was $1.3 billion to solve all the various issues.
He encouraged the governor to include the jails in his “skinny” capital budget as the pandemic and vaccinations are top priorities.
“The understanding is that this is kind of a skinny capital budget designed to meet the immediate needs of the state,” Leutz said. “In that context we are extremely pleased that the capital budget as proposed will provide $50 million for DRC to competitively award funds to counties with the greatest need to help them address the challenges of providing safe and secure county jail facilities that help to ensure public safety.”
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