The idea of sharing a new county jail with Garvin County has apparently been scuttled by McClain County officials.
A report in the Garvin County News Star indicates that county commissioners are moving forward with their bond attorney. They plan to prepare ballot information to ask Garvin County voters for a bond issue to build a new county jail. McClain County Commissioner Wilson Lyles said officials here thought it best to pull away from working together on a regional detention facility.
Lyles said it wasn’t the idea of a regional facility so much as the fact that Garvin County is working with firms that are not local to Oklahoma. The News Star reports that Garvin County officials are working with Missouri-based Goldberg Group Architects.
Lyles said, “There are so many variables in place for taxpayers and officials, and to explain everything necessary to eventually fund a facility can be difficult. We would want to try to keep it local, at least in the state, with people who are located down the road — not in Denver, Colorado, or Kansas City.”
Lyles explained that local people would be able to help much quicker if something were to arise.
“We weren’t quite in agreement with some of the architects and finance people they had their mind set on, and we have people around here who have designed jails,” Lyles said.
The News Star states that McClain and Garvin County officials met in August and November 2023 to discuss the possibility of sharing a regional jail, but no agreement was ever reached. County officials in Garvin County said they are now ready to move on their own.
Lyles said the McClain County Jail will have to be addressed at some point, but he added that the county is very fortunate to have officials working together to address prisoner housing and the funding of this issue.
He said McClain County has a half-cent sales tax that thankfully the people of the county approved, and .33% of that goes to the McClain County Sheriff’s Office. Lyles said it helps tremendously with the ability of McClain County to contract with other counties to house McClain County detainees.
He said countians passed the half-cent by more than 70% approval the last two times it came up. Lyles said he believes it still has about two years remaining on the last approval, but it will be coming up again.
“We are very proud and thankful that the citizens approved this and supported us in the past,” Lyles said. “We are one of the lowest taxed counties in the state. For us just to have a half penny places us on the bottom side of things. Many counties are maxed out at 2%.”
Lyles also said the area judges work with the county officials in keeping the jail population down, but there continues to be a need to house prisoners in nearby counties.
As the idea of building a county detention facility comes back up, Lyles said it will be a very serious discussion because of the school bonds in place or that are needed at McClain County schools.
He said the folks are feeling it already within the county’s school districts. He said Mc-Clain County, the county municipalities, and the county schools are growing at a very rapid pace.
