County may see big hike in jail rent

Adrienne Packer

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001 | 9:32 a.m.

Beginning in April, Clark County could be paying more than $500,000 in monthly rent to keep inmates in the city jail while the county's chronically delayed detention center is under construction.

The county's interlocal agreement with Las Vegas -- which allows jail inmates to be held at the city's Stewart Center facility during the detention center expansion -- expires in April.

If the county jail is not finished and a new agreement is not in place, the county will be required to pay Las Vegas $50 per day per inmate, said Paul Martin, executive director of the detention center.

The 447 county inmates held at the city jail Monday, for example, would have cost Clark County $22,000 a day without the interlocal agreement. That is about $660,000 per month.

Martin said the rates paid with the agreement are "significantly less" because county staff is overseeing the inmates.

"When that ends, and if the city is geared up, we will put prisoners in their custody," Martin said. "Then it's $50 a day."

Interlocal agreements with the city of Henderson and North Las Vegas expire in early summer. On Monday, 57 inmates were held in Henderson and 33 were housed in North Las Vegas.

The county will likely attempt to renogiate the interlocal agreements with the respective cities if the jail is not completed by April.

Funds used to cover rent are not budgeted and could further threaten county coffers, which are already suffering from low sales tax revenues and tourism rates due to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The 1,300-bed, $85 million expansion was scheduled to be completed in May. Clark County Assistant Manager Mike Alastuey emphasized Monday that the facility needs to open by April.

After a series of delays and several days last month in which subcontractors walked off the job site, Alastuey directed the general contractor and manager of the jail expansion to work out a schedule of deadlines.

Unlike a similar directive issued in March, this time the county is closely monitoring the scheduling between general contractor AF Construction and project manager Jacob's Facilities Inc.

Alastuey said neither company is facing fines for the year-long delay, but county administrators are determined to ensure the project is finished by April.

"We intend to get a jail," Alastuey said. "The county wouldn't have approached the manager and general contractor if we had been fully satisfied with previous efforts."

Dissension between subcontractors, some of whom have filed lawsuits against each other, have slowed progress of the jail on Casino Center Drive between Lewis and Clark streets.

"We told the general contractor and our manager to ramp it up and get these issues resolved," Alastuey said. "At this point, we told our manager to make an effort to work with the general contractor."

Aside from disputes between crews, the most significant problem hindering progress at the detention center has been the fire ventilation system, which did not meet the city's fire codes.

"That's still a substantial factor," Alastuey said. "Both the design and construction procurement efforts are going to fix that problem and they are under way. We are farther along than we were."

The county's $170 million Regional Justice Center project, which will be connected to the expanded jail, has also been wrought with problems.

Delays with the courthouse -- which have caused less concern because they do not have a financial impact on the county -- have pushed the completion date back to spring 2003. The project was initially expected to be finished in mid-2002.