A proposed jail expansion has been placed on lockdown after a low project bid of $8.31 million was received, nearly $2 million over budget.

“We just don’t have the money,” said Warren County Executive Herschel Wells, chair of the Financial Management Committee which met Monday to consider the bid.

Borrowed was $6.5 million for jail expansion. In order to borrow more than $6.5 million, the measure would have to be approved by the full Warren County Commission on Sept. 17. The bid from Merit Construction out of Knoxville is good for 14 days only, or until Aug. 24.

Wells added, “We only have $6.5 million. We can’t approve something we don’t have the money to pay for.”

Merit Construction submitted the low bid and was one of four bids received. The other three bids were for $8.75 million, $8.88 million and $9.09 million.
Upland Design Group architect Allen Hill urged the committee to accept the low bid.

“Although the overall cost is disappointing in that it exceeds the bid target, we believe this is a reasonable cost for the work in the current bid market,” said Hill. “Our recommendation is Warren County accept the base bid plus alternate No. 2 if at all possible.”

Alternate No. 2 would add $42,500 – bringing the bid up to $8.36 million – for interconnection of detention controls between the two buildings.

“Sheriff’s Department personnel consider this to be very important to the operation of the building, so we are including this work in our recommendation,” said Hill.

The project is expected to be certified for approximately 145 beds, depending on how certain medical isolation cells are classified. Currently, the jail has a capacity of 251.

The county has been under the watchful eye of the state due to long-standing overcrowding. On Monday, the jail had 312 inmates – 61 over capacity. If the jail’s population reaches 351, the state has warned it will step in and force change.

Hill says the state will not concern itself with how much the project costs.

“We did one project years ago,” he said. “The current Cumberland County Justice Center was done under a federal court order and there was a very strict timeline imposed by the federal judge and there was definitely an increase in the cost in paying for that facility, because they tell you went it’s going to be done.”

Reducing the number of beds in the project may not reduce the cost.

“If we took out one-third of the beds, we don’t feel like the cost of the project will go down by one-third,” said Hill. “Things like generator, smoke evacuation system and the control room itself, things like that, are fixed costs. The cost for those is relatively the same no matter how many beds.”

Hill added, “We do feel like we could cut the cost to the $6.5 million, but in doing so, we feel like the project would cease to be feasible. If we took off that many cells, then we are talking about a drastic reduction in the bed count. Because the county needs those beds, to come back and add them at another time would be an extra cost in compared to doing it all in one shot.”

Upland Design provided the estimate which led commissioners to borrow $6.5 million. Hill explained market prices are increasing daily and the bid reflects it.
“We believe this is a fair bid considering the construction market we are in right now,” said Hill. “Material prices are up. Labor prices are up, even more than material prices are. From the time the project was originally scoped, we feel like we’ve seen that much inflation. We feel like this is a fair bid, given the scope of work.”

According to Hill, Pickett County’s jail expansion was estimated at $8 million but the low bid was $15 million.

In the past, the county has rebid projects in hopes of obtaining a lower bid. Hills says that probably will not work in this economy.

“If you rebid it, some people lose interest,” said Hill. “We may see some further escalation in cost. That’s a possibility, to try and rebid it. I think the better value is the bid we have.”

Director of Schools Bobby Cox replied, “We cannot vote on something we don’t have the money to fund.”

The county Financial Management Committee took no vote on Hill’s recommendation. Instead, the measure will be sent to the county’s Building and Grounds Committee for consideration.