What happened
In the first discussion of the CIP budget following the approval of the county budget, commissioners moved forward on projects associated with the Jail and Justice Center, a 911 training center, and the first phase of the Junior Justice Center expansion.
The discussion
The commissioners allocated $1 million to purchase a building at 600 Forest Street, Georgetown to potentially house Jail and Justice Center offices. Commissioners voted 4-1 to fund the purchase, which was originally approved at an Aug. 26 meeting.
Precinct 3 commissioner Valerie Covey said that purchasing the building is the shortest term solution for “getting relief for the justice center.”
County Judge Steven Snell voted against the project at both the Aug. 26 and Sept. 9 meetings, because of “big time concerns” about the building. Snell said that because commissioners had discussed building a justice center complex outside of downtown Georgetown, he does not support purchasing more property downtown.
“I understand the need for more space for the justice center, but the purchase of the building was one cost to that,” Snell said at the Sept. 9 meeting. “Now we're going to spend two to two-and-a-half times the cost of the building to make it habitable in some fashion.”
Although Covey proposed $1.5 million for the purchase and remodel of the building, commissioners voted to allocate $1 million for the purchase, and discussed possibly demolishing the building in the future.
The county will need to coordinate with the city of Georgetown, and anticipate a three to four month project for renovation or six months to a year for demolishing and building temporary office space, Facilities Director Dale Butler said.
Digging deeper
Commissioners also allocated almost $4 million for contractors associated with the new justice center project.
“The bill is way bigger than this,” Covey said. “This is an estimate ... on what we're going to need for this next year based on what we think we can get accomplished, and we're just splitting it between years, basically.”
There is also $10 million proposed to go towards buying land for the project site, and commissioners tabled the conversation about purchasing land for a later date.
“It doesn't matter how many years we push it out to build it,” Covey said. “If we don't buy the land now, we're running out of options.”
Also of note
Commissioners also voted unanimously to allocate:
- $7.6 million for technology and software for internal operations
- $4.6 million for a 911 training center in the Lake Creek annex
- $2.5 million for an internal asset management solution
- $2.4 million for backup power for the county jail
- $1.5 million for the Junior Justice Center phase 1 and 2 contingencies
- $950,000 for the Lake Creek annex building to house county employees
- $750,000 to design the Personnel Muster Facility
- $200,000 for parking expansion at the sheriff’s office
Commissioners will continue discussion on the CIP budget at the Sept. 16 meeting.
“Next week is a crucial conversation about interim moves and plans,” Covey said. “We might want to be able to take action on some of these that we are not doing today.”
