FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County Commissioners decided against a millage rate increase that would have been one of the potential funding sources for a new jail.
The current Fulton County Jail has a long-documented history of hazards with parts of the overcrowded facility literally falling apart and after Wednesday’s vote, county officials are already looking into a plan B, C, and D.
“We have a facility that has areas of it that is crumbing. We have areas of it that doesn’t have adequate housing,” said Fulton County Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman when asked about the Fulton County Jail on Rice Street. "There’s a crumbling infrastructure it is overcrowded, it has outlasted it’s usefulness once it was built in the '70s, OK, it was immediately overcrowded."
In recent months the county commission voted to have county staff find funding options for the $1.68 billion needed to build a new jail. This week commissioners decided against a millage rate increase that would have provided an initial $36 million needed to start the project, but county officials said all hope isn’t lost, as another funding option is a sales tax.
“That would involve state legislation and probably a referendum for the voters to decide whether or not they would want to support that instead of paying it through their own home property tax,” added county commissioner Bob Ellis, who adds they are exploring a total of 4 viable options.
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They include a sales tax, millage rate increase in the coming years, a reallocation of general funds and department cuts, and cutting the about $50 million in county dollars that is provided to Tax Allocation Districts, including from the Beltline area. Ellis said the funds could come from one or a combination of the option but said that addressing mismanagement in the justice system could also help provide funds.
“We have to do better in terms of the operations of our justice system," Ellis explained. "We have a backlog of cases,. We are not getting criminal cases cleared fast enough. That’s putting increased pressure on our jail facilities -- all of our operations."
But other commissioners worry that with a U.S. Department of Justice Investigation of the jail underway, waiting will only make things worse.
“We can either solve the problem or somebody else solves the problem," Abdur-Rahman said. "Now, if somebody else solves the problem that means that they are going to be in control of it as well."
Abdur-Rahman worries the federal government could take over the Fulton County Jail, which is not unheard of as federal authorities took control of the jail twice before, once in 1999 and against in 2005 after an inmate lawsuit.
It's also not out of the question there could be another millage rate increase vote in the coming years.