Seward County Commissioners will utilize the Inheritance Fund to pay for a six-digit update of the camera system that serves the Justice Center, which includes both the jail and court facilities.
The camera system was installed when the Justice Center was completed in 2017 and the county has neither set aside funds to replace the system on an annual basis nor anticipated the expense in this year’s budget.
Sara Stenger, detention center director since last fall, and Andrew Truslow, deputy detention center director, told commissioners the building’s cameras have failed periodically – once for as long as 44 hours earlier this month – which could make the jail noncompliant with detention standards.
“We are in desperate need of a new camera system,” Stenger said. “It is a safety issue.”
Jails, she said, must be equipped with audio alert systems and closed-circuit television with these systems.
Replacement of the entire system could cost as much as $339,000. Officials noted the price of the camera systems increased $13,000 since August.
The county contracts with Soarin Group for technology repairs and maintenance, but both the equipment and the Accurate computer software system that drives it are now outdated, which means updates may not be available. Stenger said both the technology company and the software company have worked on the current system to restart it when it freezes.
The Justice Center has more than 100 cameras, about a fourth of those are in the jail.
Stenger said they had just five or six cameras working at the jail on April 7. But in a later interview she said work had been done and as of April 17, all jail cameras were working.
“We should have visual on 24 that we can operate throughout the unit,” Stenger said April 17.
“They come and go a handful of times a day. There were days we were not able to get all 24 back.”
Sometimes rebooting the camera restores its function, but other times they have had to have an IT person help out.
Costs, lifespan reviewed
County officials met with Accurate on April 15, and County Commission Chair Misty Ahmic said while software and computers may need to be replaced, some components, like cables, are expected to last about 15 years so could remain in use longer.
The cameras have a life span of about 10 years and the computers about 7 years, Ahmic said.
While commissioners expressed support for replacing the system, discussion centered on how such an expense should be funded now and in the future.
“We have a better understanding of how long things will last into the future,” Ahmic said after the April 15 meeting.
She serves as the commission’s liaison for information technology needs in the county offices.
Commissioner Darrell Zabrocki, who with Commissioner Scott Pekarek serves as liaison to the Sheriff’s Office which oversees the detention center, said the camera purchase is an appropriate use for the Inheritance Fund.
The county deposits funds derived from inheritance taxes in a fund reserved for unanticipated repairs or expenses that are not within its regular budget.
“This is one of the reasons you have the Inheritance Fund,” he said.
Ahmic agreed the county should upgrade the system, but said the entire building’s system would have to be replaced, not just the jail’s.
Commissioner Raegan Hain said because the facility is shared with other departments, the funding should not solely be tied to the detention center’s budget.
“There was no money or plan set aside to be able to pay for it,” she said. “We know we are going to have ongoing needs for various things at the jail.
Out of county
inmate fees eyed
Stenger said the jail could bring in about $35,000 over a six-month period by housing inmates from other counties now because it is more fully staffed than before.
Sheriff Mike Vance said he knows of two counties who are ready to place inmates in Seward County’s facilities.
But those fees, like fees collected in other county departments, are not usually set aside for the departments that generate them. Those funds go into the general fund to offset the need for property taxes the following fiscal year.
Ahmic said fees from all county departments are deposited in the general fund and provide the start of the next fiscal year’s budgeted expenditures. The county then knows the total of the fees received by June 30 as one fiscal year ends and applies that to the budget being approved – and the tax rates needed – for the next year.
A few exceptions have been made. For example, Ahmic said the county attorney’s office bills the city of Milford for a small amount of legal services each year, and the county attorney has asked that those fees reimburse her budget.
“It is always best to let them roll back into the general fund,” Ahmic said in a later interview.
But, she said Stenger’s suggestion to allocate the fees from other counties for keeping inmates may be a reasonable exception.
“Right now there are a lot of counties out there who are having to do what we did, which is build a jail,” she said.
The fees charged cover the costs for food, laundry, beds, medication and other inmate expenses.
