The Mercer County Board has approved issuing $5.8 million in revenue bonds for a proposed expansion at the Mercer County Jail. The action was taken Monday night.
Mercer County is building a 30-cell addition to house U.S. Marshals Service prisoners. They are anticipating 60 inmates per day at $60 per inmate. Under the plan, they would net a profit of $478,000 a year even with the $446,000 bond payment factored in.
“We capitalized one year of interest into that bonding to give us more time to get the jail up and running,” said county board member Floyd Utz of New Windsor. “The projected interest rate is somewhere between 3.7 and 4.5 percent.”
The expansion would be paid for in 20 years. Construction should begin in a month. The general contractor is Vanguard Constructors of Pekin, Ill.
The break-even point is an occupancy of 36 Marshals Service inmates, and at 72 inmates, the arrangement would net the county a return of $719,000 per year.
People are also reading…
Mercer County has had a long relationship with the Marshals Service housing inmates awaiting trial or court proceedings at U.S. District Court in Rock Island or Davenport.
