DEJA VU

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

Webster County Jail seeing same problems after two decades

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 The catalyst for this project is the jail — it’s become too small and too outdated to operate efficiently.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