USDA funds a possible option for new jail

WALLACE — The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners met with a loan specialist to once again broach the subject of funding a new public safety building.

Howard Lunderstadt is a United States Department of Agriculture Loan Specialist who explained to the BOCC how a 30-year loan through the USDA’s Rural Development Community Facility Program could be a possibility for Shoshone County in getting a new jailhouse and hub for the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the USDA, “this program provides loan guarantees to eligible lenders to develop essential community facilities in rural areas. An essential community facility is defined as a public improvement, operated on a non-profit basis, needed for the orderly development of a rural community where the rural community is a city or town, or its equivalent county or multi-county area. The term ‘facility’ refers to both the physical structure financed, and the resulting service provided to rural residents or rural businesses.”

Shoshone County’s Public Safety building seems to fit the bill, but there are a few requirements that come along with it.

To utilize said loan, it requires the passing of a bond to service the construction department.

Each loan comes with a competitive interest rate, and the funds are reserved for areas with populations of less than 50,000 people, and comes with a maximum allowed loan amount of $100 million, these are just a few of the criteria.

In 2019, a similar bond totaling around $22 million was brought before the general public for a new 32,000-square-foot public safety building, however it failed to meet the 67% plus one-vote, supermajority requirement.

In fact, it missed that number by nearly 20%, garnering just 48% of the votes in favor of running it.

The current public safety building is pushing 50 years old and has hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs and upgrades that are needed to bring it back up to date.

“Our facility is getting outdated,” Shoshone County Sheriff Mike Gunderson explained in an earlier interview. “Between the standards for keeping jail certification and keeping up with a changing society, it’s difficult.”

BOCC Chairman Mike Fitzgerald believes that while costs may be initially higher this time around, there is the possibility of trimming in some areas and then allowing other aspects of the project to receive funding from different sources outside from the bond.

“Although the upper benchmark cost is $24 (million) but likely less with some trimming, I’ll need to go back to the drawing board a bit with the numbers,” Fitzgerald said. “Things are moving a bit. We can likely subtract some dollars off the top.”

Those off-the-top items include specifically earmarked 9-1-1 funds for the dispatch room, ARPA for the sewer and broadband to the site, HVAC that is also COVID compliant for the jail, as well as other ventilation.

However, Fitzgerald did say that he believes the biggest questions in front of the BOCC, as well as the voters of Shoshone County boil down to two very specific ones; Should they move forward and attempt to pass another bond? And, is the timing right for all of this?

While all of this is still very much in its infancy, these are the things the BOCC will be considering in the coming weeks before they meet to discuss the topic again.

For a full list of the USDA’s Community Facility Program loan information, visit www.rd.usda.gov.

The Shoshone News-Press will continue to monitor this ongoing story.