Chance meeting could save county millions on new jail facility – Mississippi's best local newspaper

NATCHEZ – A chance meeting between Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten and the man whose company built the correctional facility on U.S. 84 in Adams County could save the county millions of dollars on a new jail and police complex.

Patten today informed the Adams County Board of Supervisors of this meeting with Buddy Johns, president of Modcorr Modern Correctional Solutions based in Galveston, Texas.

After meeting at a conference in Oklahoma, Johns drove to Natchez with an engineer who works with him. She and Patten toured about 90 pods currently unused at Core Civic Correctional Facility and discussed how they could be retrofitted for use by Adams County.

A pod is a building that houses two to four inmates at a time.

“This guy flew to New Orleans and drove to Natchez to meet with us. He brought his engineer who inspected the pods. We probably looked at 90 of them,” Patten said. “He said he would stand at his work and refurbish anything that needed refurbishing so we could use the pods.”

“If you were to build these capsules now, these two- to four-man cells would cost between $160,000 and $180,000 per capsule. He said he could refurbish these capsules for $12,000 to $15,000 per capsule, which could save us millions in building a new facility. We're talking millions he could save us,” Patten said.

He said Core Civic officials have offered multiple times to donate these unused pods to the county to build a jail. Patten said Johns plans another trip to Natchez with a team of engineers to examine each pod more closely and provide accurate numbers on what it would cost to renovate them.

“From what he saw on his first visit, there are currently enough pods on the site to build our entire housing unit,” Patten said. “I'll notify you all when he comes back in September so you can come by and meet this guy in person.”

Board of Supervisors Chairman Kevin Wilson, who represents the county's Second District, asked Patten if he had any drawings showing how the various parts of the building could be put together to form a county jail. Patten said he did not have any drawings yet.

“We have to wait and see what the needs analysis reveals,” he said.

The board voted unanimously to proceed with the prison needs assessment, pending approval of the contract language by District Attorney Scott Slover.

District 3 County Executive Angela Hutchins asked Jamie Holloway, a municipal consultant with Government Consultants Inc., to attend Monday's meeting to discuss ways the county could fund a jail.

Holloway said most municipalities that build prisons now use lease-purchase financing (known as COPS or Certificate of Participation) instead of municipal bonds.

“You need to know how much the prison is going to cost you and how much it's going to cost you to run,” he said. “The vast majority are now going the lease-to-own route because it doesn't negatively impact your credit rating.”

He said Vicksburg, Hinds County and Pike County – all of which are building new correctional facilities – are financing the construction through the lease-purchase process.