For the past year, Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener has been working with a West Des Moines consulting firm to look into whether Webster County needs a new jail or law enforcement center to replace the current one located at 702 First Ave. S.
The results of the study conducted by The Samuels Group were clear — the current Webster County Jail and Law Enforcement Center are not meeting the county’s needs and, in fact, are a source of hemorrhaging money.
The Webster County Law Enforcement Center was built in 1983. At the time, it was exactly what was needed to replace the condemned former county jail on the fourth floor of the Webster County Courthouse. It also became headquarters to both the Webster County Sheriff’s Office and the Fort Dodge Police Department. Other departments that have called the building home over the years include the telecommunications/911 center, Webster County Emergency Management, Webster County Magistrate Court and juvenile court services.
Sometime during the last 40 years, the Sheriff’s Office and FDPD have both outgrown their respective office spaces, Fleener said. In 1998, for example, the Sheriff’s Office had 14 sworn deputies — not including the chief deputy or sheriff — and two civil clerks. Today, it has 18 sworn deputies, two civil clerks, a civil process server and an administrative assistant.But the need for a new facility isn’t just about getting bigger office space, Fleener said. The catalyst for this project is the jail — it’s become too small and too outdated to operate efficiently.
The current jail has a capacity of 56 inmates, yet the county has an average of 75-90 inmates in custody at any given time, Fleener said. When the jail fills to capacity, the county has to turn to jails in nearby counties to house the Webster County inmates.
Over the past decade, Webster County has paid more than $610,000 to house inmates in jails in neighboring counties, spending $247,545 in 2021
alone. Just since July 2022, the county has spent $180,000 to house inmates elsewhere, Fleener said. For his fiscal year 2024 budget, Fleener has budgeted $350,000 for this problem.
Those costs don’t include the cost of fuel to transport inmates to other jails and back to Webster County for court proceedings. It also doesn’t include the cost of the deputies’ salaries nor the cost of the wear and tear on the department’s vehicles. In the month of December 2022 alone, just one of the transporting deputies drove over 2,500 miles to transport inmates.
Safety when transporting inmates is also a concern Fleener has.
“The increased risk for us as a county is the lone deputy or jailer in a vehicle traveling up and down the highway with one or two or three inmates in a car,” he said. “We try to do everything we possibly can to make that as safe as possible. But let’s face it, the car could break down or get into an accident, they could get ambushed by somebody that wants to break them out. All those things are real possibilities that could happen and that is a huge liability for us.”
There are also more than 900 individuals waiting to serve time for non-violent misdemeanors. These individuals have been sentenced to short jail
MARK GARGANO
JAIL ADMINISTRATOR, FIRST YEAR
BRIAN STAMP
SERGEANT, 4 YEARS
BRODY GOODMAN
SERGEANT, 3 YEARS
MAGGIE RICHARDSON
3 YEARS
JONATHAN RODRIGUEZ
SERGEANT, FIRST YEAR
BEN WESTERGAARD
SERGEANT, FIRST YEAR
CORY WOLFF
FIRST YEAR
ANGIE MESSERLY
FIRST YEAR
KYLE SHOOK
FIRST YEAR
SAVANNAH AIKIN
FIRST YEAR
RANDI HOLST
FIRST YEAR
DAVID COLLAN
FIRST YEAR
GRIFFIN HEIN
FIRST YEAR
MARK DAVIS
FIRST YEAR
ERICKA MIKITA
FIRST YEAR
ANDY URBAN
FIRST YEAR
JOHN SIMPSON
FIRST YEAR
SHAYLA BASCHKE
FIRST YEAR
BROOKE HALEY
FIRST YEAR
CURT SHOOK
FIRST YEAR
JUSTICE MILLER
FIRST YEAR
stays, often just a few days to a week, but because of the overcrowding have been unable to complete their sentences.
Capacity isn’t the only problem with the current jail. The jail’s design and floor plan is outdated and lacks the safety features of more modern jail designs. The jail has a linear design that creates safety and security problems, according to John Sabinash of Venture Architects, another firm working on the project.
“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 aging building is also running into a series of infrastructure problems. There have been multiple instances where water from plumbing issues on the jail floor has made its way to the floor below, causing extensive damage to offices, courtrooms, staff areas and computer equipment.
A new LEC and jail for the Webster County Sheriff’s Office and Fort Dodge Police Department could cost as much as $57 million with all the bells and whistles like an indoor firing range and covered fleet parking.
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.
If the new LEC project moves forward, the current building on First Avenue South would not be left vacant — it would remain in use by the county, Fleener said, with the possibility of other county departments moving in and expanding.
The Samuels Group is expected to present an update to the Board of Supervisors in March. Fleener said he expects them to present a proposal for a new LEC and a proposal for just a new jail facility.
“We’re going to try to give the public Option A or Option B,” Fleener said. “My opinion is tha tI like the idea of us all being together for information sharing and casework, but at the end of the day, I think the public needs to have some input because they’re the ones that are going to help foot the bill for this.”
Along with the proposals, The Samuels Group will create a website where Webster County residents can input their address or property parcel number and it will calculate the impact each project would have on their property taxes.
Fleener said he hopes to have a bond referendum put out to the voters in November.
Fleener isn’t the first — or even the second — Webster County Sheriff to go to the Board of Supervisors to look into replacing the aging building.
In 2000, then-Sheriff Chuck Griggs approached the Board of Supervisors to consider expanding the jail because there wasn’t enough room to house the number of inmates in custody. The jail at the time had 29 beds, with an additional 10 at the jail annex
then located at 602 Third Ave. N., and at least a dozen inmates were being housed in the Hardin County Jail because of the lack of space.
According to reports from the county auditor’s office at the time, in fiscal year 2001, the county spent more than $244,733 to house inmates in other counties. That number does not reflect the cost of transportation or the salaries of the deputies transporting inmates.
Despite more than a year of work by the Jail Study Committee and Board of Supervisors — and even the board’s approval on a plan for a $6.7 million, 82-bed jail only — nothing came of it. The Fort Dodge Betterment Foundation even donated 3.5 acres of land west of the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility. The proposed designs for the jail would have allowed for future additions of office space for the Webster County Sheriff’s Office. By 2006, then-Sheriff Brian Mickelson went to the board with the same complaints and requested a new jail study be completed. That study, done by StrataVizion, a consulting group from Des Moines, was presented to the board in May 2007. The StrataVizion study confirmed the building’s inadequacies first identified in 2001. StrataVizion presented two proposals for a solution — refurbish the current jail and construct a jail annex on the county parking lot west of the LEC for $11.9 million, or build a new jail facility for $18,662,463. It is unclear from reporting at the time if the new facility would include the rest of the departments housed in the LEC.
A search through minutes of the Webster County Board of Supervisors from the time shows no more mention of a new jail or LEC project until October 2009. In March 2010, the board approved a plan to renovate the basement, first and second floors of the LEC building and build a new 56-bed jail off site. In April, the board approved the sale of $9 million general obligation local option sales and services tax bonds for the project. However, by October 2010, the board decided to postpone a new jail facility and construct repairs to the existing jail on the third floor of the LEC building. That project was completed in 2012. The board meeting minutes do not state the board’s reasons for axing the new jail at that time.
A look back through The Messenger’s archives shows that the jail’s capacity woes actually started just a few years after it was built. In an article from October 1989, Griggs reported that the jail was currently housing 45 inmates, though the jail’s official capacity was just 29.
