photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World File Photo

The Douglas County Courthouse at 1100 Massachusetts St., which houses the county government, is shown on Sept. 15, 2018.

There certainly will be plenty that’s new in Douglas County government in 2019. A new commissioner will be seated this month, and the county will be searching for a new county administrator for the first time in more than 25 years. But when it comes to issues, expect two old ones to dominate the year.

Once again, the issues of jail overcrowding and the expansion of behavioral health services promise to be the headline-making agenda items before the County Commission over the next 12 months. 

They are two items that should be familiar to county residents, who twice voted in 2018 on ballot questions related to the issues. In May, voters rejected a half-cent sales tax that would have funded a $44 million expansion of the county jail, the development of an $11 million behavioral health campus and $5.1 million annually for new behavioral health services; then, in November, voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax to fund construction of the $11 million campus and $4.15 million in enhanced mental health and substance abuse services.

Before commissioners dive into those issues or others, they will address the internal matter of their annual reorganization on Jan. 16. That action will follow the swearing-in of new 1st District Commissioner Patrick Kelly on Monday, Jan. 14. Kelly, who was elected in November, will replace fellow Democrat Mike Gaughan, who did not seek re-election.

Commissioner Nancy Thellman said Friday that she was ready to relinquish her position as County Commission chair she held in 2018 in favor of Commissioner Michelle Derusseau, who served as vice chair in 2018. Derusseau said she was ready to serve as chair after serving two years on the commission.

Among the issues on the County Commission’s plate for 2019 are:

Jail expansion

Interim County Administrator Sarah Pinsky and Undersheriff Gary Bunting presented the County Commission options that would add from 84 to 154 beds to the 186-bed county jail. They did not provide a cost estimate for any of the options.

When making the presentation, Bunting said at least 84 additional beds were needed to realize the County Commission’s stated goals of finding financially sustainable solutions that ended the need to house inmates in the jails of other counties, provided adequate space for the jail’s work-release and re-entry programs and added enough beds to separate inmates of different security classifications.

The construction of a new central south tower, which would replicate the towers that bookend the jail’s two wings, would provide from 84 to 112 beds and would satisfy all the County Commission’s goals, Bunting reported. The tower could be constructed with four separate cell pods, with a capacity of 28 beds each, or three such cell blocks and a medical bay.

Presented as an option to augment the tower was construction of a new “stepped-down” security unit to house minimum-security inmates in the jail’s re-entry and work-release programs. Bunting reported it could house 28 male and 14 female inmates.

Plinsky said last week that she and Bunting would present more refined plans to the County Commission.

“That will be sometime in January, but I don’t have a date for that yet,” she said. “We will have cost estimates.”

She does not expect a final decision on a jail expansion plan at that January meeting, Plinsky said.

“My anticipation is several more conversations about this issue will have to take place before commissioners are comfortable with an approach,” she said.

Any decision to expand the jail would require a decision on how to fund the project. Plinsky said the county’s options are very limited. In a November presentation to commissioners, Plinsky said the county could fund the project on a cash basis as it traditionally paid for most capital projects. The County Commission set aside $2.9 million in the 2019 budget through cuts, reallocations and fee increases for jail expansion. However, commissioners would have to add to that $2.9 million over multiple years before it could fund a significant expansion of the jail.

The other option Plinsky presented in November would use the annual $2.9 million in adjustments identified in the 2019 budget to leverage use of up to an equal amount of revenue from the county’s 1-cent sales tax to debt finance a jail construction project. That option, which would allow the county to undertake a larger capital project without years of saving, has already been criticized by the faith-based activist group Justice Matters and others opposed to a jail expansion for ignoring the will of voters in the May referendum.

Behavioral health initiatives

The county will move forward with additional behavioral health services to be funded with the quarter-cent sales tax county voters authorized in November as soon as revenue from the new tax is available, Plinsky said. The tax will be charged to retail sales in the county starting on April 1, and the county will start getting revenue from the tax about three months later, she said.

New services to be added include funding for planned preventive measures like the countywide mobile response team, the promised opioid summit that DCCCA has contracted to conduct, and greater opportunities for detoxification treatment and mental health crisis intervention, as well as easier and more timely access to psychiatric counseling, Plinsky said. 

“You’re going to see a lot coming from Bob,” Plinsky said in reference to Bob Tryanski, county director of behavioral health projects. “We’re going to start implementing services as soon as we can.”

Construction will start sometime in 2019 on the 12-bed transitional group home and 10-unit apartment complex that will be part of the behavioral health campus to be developed in the 1000 block of West Second Street, Plinsky said. Design considerations for the crisis center slated to be built on the campus in 2021 will also continue, she said.

Funding for both the group home and apartments is already in place. The home will be paid for with a $500,000 city affordable housing grant and $400,000 county allocation, and the apartments will be paid for with $1.5 million that the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority saved from the efficient management of past federal grants.

Thellman anticipates there will be other 2019 initiatives that address the critical need for safe and supported housing for those recovering from a mental health crisis or substance abuse. 

“We have been studying things that are available in other counties that could be duplicated here, as well as other creative ideas,” she said.


City of Lawrence/county interlocal agreements

Plinsky said negotiating updates of existing interlocal agreements with the city of Lawrence will take up a good deal of her time in 2019. The effort to address the agreements grew from Lawrence City Manager Tom Markus’ objections to the current cost-sharing arrangements. Markus views the agreements as unfair to Lawrence taxpayers because they pay for both the city and county’s participation in the joint agreements.

The first agreement to be reviewed is that of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical, which was last amended in 2000. At that time, it was agreed the county would provide 25.64 percent of the department’s annual operational budget and the city the remainder.

The agreement for the department is the most complex of the interlocal agreements between the two jurisdictions, in part because it touches a number of other agreements, including those for 911 dispatch service and relationships with the Baldwin City, Eudora and township fire departments, Plinsky said.

Starting with the most complex of agreements should pay off when future cost-sharing agreements for such things as the Dwayne Peaslee Technical Training Center, Lawrence Community Shelter and Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department were reviewed, Plinsky said. 

“If we can we can build consensus on the big fire-medical agreement, it will help us get through what’s left,” she said. “It is one of the biggest dollar amounts.”

County administrator search

The December retirement of Craig Weinaug as county administrator will have the County Commission hiring the first new person to the position in 26 years. Commissioners say there’s no rush to start a search process because of their confidence in Plinsky, who was hired as interim administrator in December. Plinsky, who has served eight years as assistant county administrator, has limited her comment on her interest in the open position to stating that she wants to continue serve the county.

Derusseau said she has not yet given much consideration to a search process for a new administrator because of her confidence in Plinsky. Kelly said he wanted to hear constituents’ and other county elected officials’ views on the hire. Kelly, director of the Lawrence school district’s College and Career Center, said he was inclined to support the same process the Lawrence school district used last year when it hired a consulting firm to conduct a nationwide search for a new superintendent.

Thellman, too, said the County Commission needs to hear from more people before starting the search, including department heads, county elected officials and community partners.