MONTICELLO, NY — At a meeting at the government center on April 23, the Sullivan County legislature voted to pay LaBella Associates another $299,000 for an added design element to the proposed new Sullivan County Jail. The pursuit of a new jail has been underway for a very long time, and LaBella’s role in the process was firmed up with a contract signed in 2007 to provide architecture and engineering services.

This latest amount is to pay for LaBella to incorporate space at the new facility to house the sheriff’s administration and road patrol building, which would include various functions attached to the sheriff’s office.

Initially, the plan for the jail included the sheriff’s office, but as the Great Recession was getting underway, members of the previous legislature balked at the project’s $120 million price tag. The sheriff’s office, therefore, was removed from the project and not included in the planning.

At the time it was thought another, existing facility could be found for the sheriffs office, and for a time it was planned that the building owned by the county near the Apollo Plaza would be a temporary home for the sheriff. But an option for that building was eventually folded into the sale of the mall to developer Butch Resnick.

Sheriff Mike Schiff said at the meeting there are now no realistic alternative places to house the sheriff’s office.

Legislator Kitty Vetter attempted to find out how large the space for the sheriff’s office would be. County Manager Josh Potosek said a rough estimate was 20,000 square feet, but the final answer was really unknown because it has not yet been designed.

In commenting on the same question Schiff said, “We have to sit down and build it from scratch. I don’t know what the needs will be; I’ve never built a police station before.” He said he would be working with LaBella to design the sheriff’s portion of the new jail.

Legislator Cora Edwards said that one area of concern for her was the “unending limit to design and redesign.”

Legislator Jonathan Rouis said that if it had been built when originally intended, the county would be better off. He said the plan, “was ripped apart because everyone was concentrating on the pennies, and the dollars were flying out the window.”

According to previous articles about the jail in The River Reporter, the original contract with LaBella was for $7 million for design and engineering. By April 2014, LaBella had received about $2 million. In July 2014, the legislature voted five-to-four to grant another $440,000 to the company, and another $43,000 was awarded for work regarding possible solar and geothermal systems. This latest vote for $299,000 was unanimous.

The cost of the jail has moved up and down dramatically over the years, based on the changing design and changes in the legislature. The price tag has been as high as $120 million and as low as half that much.

The current plan for the jail is for the “core” of the facility to be built to handle about 500 beds, but the beds will be in pods, and initially only enough pods to accommodate about 304 beds will be constructed.

The current jail, now crumbling and with a reputation of being perhaps the worst in the state, is more than 100 years old and can accommodate about 200 prisoners. Legislator Kathy LaBuda said of the new jail, “This jail is going to be built hopefully to last 100 years, and we have to think of the future.”