The question is listed under “Webster County Public Measure VS” on the ballot.

For the last two and a half years, Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener has worked with a West Des Moines consulting firm to look into whether Webster County needs a new jail or law enforcement center to replace the current one located at 702 First Ave. S., giving periodic updates to the Webster County Board of Supervisors.

The results of the study conducted by The Samuels Group were clear — the current Webster County Jail and Law Enforcement Center are not meeting the county’s needs and, in fact, are a source of hemorrhaging money.

The current jail has a capacity of 56 inmates, but the county averages 75 to 90 inmates in custody at any given time, Fleener previously told The Messenger. Because of this, Fleener has to rent space in other counties’ jails to house Webster County’s inmates — an expense costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. In the last five years, the county has spent $1.5 million in housing and transportation costs for these overflow inmates.

For the current fiscal year, external housing costs for inmates account for $350,000 of the Sheriff’s Office budget.

The lack of space in the current jail also contributes to more than 1,000 individuals being unable to serve their jail sentences for various offenses, thus keeping those individuals’ cases open in the courts until their sentences are discharged.

The total number of days needing to be served is 7,398. Inmates serving sentences for convictions are required to pay $100 per day in housing costs. That’s more than three quarters of a million dollars that the Webster County Sheriff’s Office has been unable to collect.

The jail study has also identified an array of safety liabilities caused by the condition of the existing aging jail.

The proposed $45.5 million general obligation bonds include the cost of acquiring the land for a facility as well as the construction of the building. To preserve the negotiation process, the county has not yet approached any landowners to discuss purchasing their land for the project, Fleener said. He said several sites have been looked at as possibilities, but they won’t begin the negotiation process until a bond referendum passes.

Fleener has highlighted that the impact on property taxes for the proposed $45.5 million project would be spread over 20 years. Giving an example, he said a residential property with an assessed value of $100,000 and a taxable value of $52,000 would pay an additional $62.40 each year, for a total of $1,248 over two decades.

The webstercountyvote.com website allows residents to input their property’s parcel number to learn exactly what the tax impact would be.

Whether the bond referendum passes or not, Webster County taxpayers will be footing the bill for the cost of housing county inmates somewhere — it’s just a matter of whether that taxpayer money will stay in Webster County.

The design for the proposed new jail is for a 60,692-square-foot facility that would house both the jail and the Sheriff’s Office. The jail would have 61 general population cells double bunked and eight special needs cells with one bunk, totaling 130 beds. The facility would also include space for jail administration, Sheriff’s Office administration, patrol, investigations and civil processing.