Grayson County abandoned speculative jail building scheme

After a majority of the commissioners court spent 2008 and 2009 pushing to build an unneeded, 1,500 bed jail, Grayson County has wisely scaled back their jail building ambitions, approving a contract this week to add 96 beds to their current facility. Even that, IMO, could probably have been delayed. The Grayson jail's current capacity is 432, but as of December 1 (pdf) there were only 315 inmates there, including 30 being held on contract. But at least a 96-bed expansion is clearly designed to fill the county's needs rather than launching some grandiose, speculative venture to compete in the slumping private prison market..

The best part: The county can pay for the smaller jail with cash on hand instead of issuing long-term debt that would require raising taxes. There's a takeaway lesson from this episode that one would think should resonate with fiscal conservatives: Smaller government costs less; jails are government; therefore smaller jails cost less.

Indeed, one need only look at the jail fiascos in McLennan and Johnson Counties - where private companies convinced commissioners to build large facilities they didn't need that now sit empty with no contracts to pay the bond debt - to see the mess Grayson County would be in now if they'd actually built a speculative 1,500 bed jail. Grayson taxpayers should thank the police union CLEAT for suing to stop the jail vote last year; given this outcome, it saved them a lot of money and headaches.

See related Grits posts:

• Open records reveal Sheriff's disdain for private jail plans
• CLEAT will sue to delay Grayson jail vote
• Breakout! Burnet jail escape ill-timed for Grayson jail builders
• Jail standards commission altered needs assessment for Grayson County Jail
• TDCJ prisoner decline could bust privatization scheme for Grayson County Jail
• Grayson County Judge pushing irresponsible jail building scheme