Insufficient Funding & Legal Battles Continue to Stall New Oklahoma Co. Jail Construction

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — Oklahoma County officials have hit another roadblock when it comes to the construction of the new Oklahoma county jail, they say they’re now short on funds.

County commissioners told Fox 25 that the amount of additional funds needed depends on the size of the new jail, but with the current funding they would only be able to house around 700 inmates and officials say last week there were approximately 1600 inmates here inside of the current jail.

Nearly three years ago Oklahoma County voters approved a $260 million bond for a new jail, but now officials say that won’t be enough funding to build an adequate facility.

“It’s no surprise that grocery bills are double what they were two years ago, well, the same is true for construction,” said Oklahoma County Commissioner for District Two, Brian Maughan, “So we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to shore up that gap.”

According to the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, that gap is at least $350 million.

“We’ve been studying 1800 beds for $610 million, voters approved $260 (million) some would suggest if there’s 1600 people in the jail, the 1800s not enough,” Steve Mason, Chairman of theCitizens Bond Oversight Committee said.

On Tuesday commissioners voted to allow the committee to explore all options to obtain additional funding.

“We’re going to look at a concept called a lockbox, which is one of the options with a public-private partnership, where you can take a certain amount of money and then bond against it with future projections,” said Maughan, “We also are looking internally with our budgets, we’re also looking at what it would take if we went to the taxpayers and asked for additional financing.”

During Tuesday’s meeting commissioners also directed the District Attorney to explore settlement options with the city of OKC, after the county filed a lawsuit in response to the city council’s vote against a special use permit for jail construction at a proposed site off Grand Blvd. in June.

“We’re trying to reach out to the city and see if there’s any opportunity for a compromise or a truce, to see if we can work out together some sort of an alternative or an existing way that we can move forward on the present site that we’ve chosen,” Maughan said, “The timeline of the litigation will kill us all.”