A green light has been given to proceed with one of the county’s most expensive and long-term undertakings of the year.
After being chosen over two other firms, a Marion County company will receive a $1,072,750 contract to install a new surveillance system that will virtually cover the entire block occupied by the Bartholomew County Jail.
In addition to the current section of jail being used, new equipment would also be installed in an older and currently unused section of the jail, as well as in the work-release area on the building’s south side.
While Bartholomew County Sheriff Matt Myers has maintained his main concern is to address overcrowding, reopening the unused section will also make room for a proposed court-ordered drug treatment program for up to 40 male offenders.
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Although funding for the Recovery Enables a Life for Men (REALM) program is being recommended by an advisory committee, the proposal still needs to gain the favor of the county’s Substance Abuse Public Funding Board before funding requests are brought to the city and county councils.
The county commissioners will pay 50 percent of the $1.07 million in costs for the surveillance system through their county Economic Development Income Tax fund, commissioners chairman Larry Kleinhenz said.
On Tuesday night, the county council voted to pay the other 50 percent from the county’s general fund.
After a 40 percent increase in Local Income Taxes went into effect in January, the general fund received more LIT money than what the council budgeted last fall, county auditor Barb Hackman said. The council waited until this week to determine how those unmarked funds should be spent, Hackman said.
It is also likely that most of this withdrawal from the general fund won’t take place until next year, she said.
In a written statement Wednesday, Myers extended his appreciation to elected officials and county employees who have worked together over the past two years to make the updated security system a reality.
“I know this has been a major cost to the taxpayers of Bartholomew County, but we must keep up with maintaining our jail as the inmate population continues to rise,” Myers wrote.
The firm that won the contract, Security Automation Systems (SAS) of Indianapolis, submitted the highest of the three base bids opened July 23 by the commissioners.
But all three proposals came with several options regarding such components such as hardware, servers, data storage and warranties that either increased or reduced the base bid.
For the past three weeks, bids and options have been closely scrutinized by a committee made up of jail commander Maj. John Martoccia, county information technology director Scott Mayes and jail maintenance supervisor Rick Thompson.
Since the video from all cameras must be stored for at least one year, SAS got the upper hand over the competition by proposing an alternate storage solution, Mayes said.
Although all three firms offered network-anchored storage devises, the SAS software automation system provided an option to utilize standard servers that will offer close to 3 million gigabytes of storage, Mayes said.
In addition, SAS further reduced the cost with an option not to place video and audio equipment in detective interview rooms, Mayes said.
Those interview rooms already have such recording equipment that needs to be kept separate from the main surveillance system, Martoccia told the commissioners.
After the three committee members chose those two options, the bid from the Indianapolis company was lowered by $416,000 to $1.07 million, Mayes said.
In comparison, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions, Inc. of Fishers offered to do the job for $1.37 million, while the bid from Black Creek Integrated Systems of Irondale, Alabama, was for $1.42 million.
It’s been more than 10 years since Stanley provided the current surveillance system that has now deteriorated with age into what Mayes described as a “hodgepodge of repairs.”
When an audience member asked about the reputation of SAS, commissioner Carl Lienhoop said the company was founded about 10 years ago by former executives from Stanley, and has supplied surveillance systems to both state prisons and several county jails.
The company was highly recommended by former Bartholomew County Sheriff Kenny Whipker, who oversees county jail inspections for the Indiana Department of Correction, Kleinhenz said.
In total, the Indianapolis firm was able to provide 12 favorable recommendations, mostly from jails scattered throughout Indiana’s 92 counties, Mayes said.
When asked about the possibility of cost overruns, Mayes said that will only happen if several broken cables are uncovered during the upcoming installation.
Due to the size of the project and its complexity, the installation will take six to eight months to complete, and additional time will be required for staff training, Martoccia said.
The system integrates different components including door locks, cameras and intercoms into one large and complex security system, Thompson said last month.
New control centers will also be installed capable of remotely operating the different security elements, Mayes added.
In addition to the new security system, the county plans to spend at least $1 million to replace the jail’s heating and air conditioning systems in 2019.
Another $600,000 will be needed two years later to address deterioration under the domed outdoor recreation area on the jail’s roof, county officials said.
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232: Inmate capacity for section of jail now in operation.
108: Capacity for unused section of jail
246: Jail population Wednesday
248: Average jail population over past two weeks.
263: Record-high number of inmates (September 2017)
Source: Bartholomew County Jail Commander Maj. John Martoccia.
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