By OLIVIA BERGMEIER and NATE KING
Salina Post
Large, open rooms with natural light, clear sightlines and fresh air furnish the new Saline County Jail at 800 E. Pacific Ave. — complete with program rooms and upgraded inmate facilities.
According to Saline County administrator Phillip Smith-Hanes, the county planned the new jail with the future in mind, preparing the structure for expansions and alterations later.
“We won't need another jail in our lifetimes,” Smith-Hanes said. “They've told us we should be at capacity in about 20 years… On the north side, we've only built half of a pod, and you can go and build the other half of that pod and then add one additional pod on the north side. There's also a little bit of space to add on additional administrative offices as well.”
Pods are independent sections that house a small number of prisoners — in the new jail, each pod has a 20-person capacity.
The Saline County Commission met at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 31, to begin the celebration in the new conference room with guest appearances from various businesses, organizations and elected officials involved in the project.
"It took us 11 months from the vote to the groundbreaking," said Saline County Commission chairman Robert Vidricksen. "When you're in private business, as I was for many years, it can be difficult to understand what takes so long to get anything done with the government. But in this case, I can tell you for very good reasons."
Click and drag the white slider in the above photo to see what the jail looked like before the day of the ribbon cutting.
"When you're spending $89 million of taxpayer money, you feel the weight of wanting to get it right," Vidricksen said.
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The budget and construction timelines of the new Saline County Jail were finished on schedule.
A modern home for the Saline County Sheriff’s Department
According to Dave Dudzik, construction executive of Turner Construction in the Kansas City Metropolitan, 500 tons of steel and 8,500 cubic yards of concrete make up the 150,000 square feet of the new jail.
Inside, Saline County Sheriff Rodger Soldan said the building's control rooms watch over 400 different cameras, just one of many upgrades.
"It's more than I anticipated," Soldan said. "This is more than just a bigger jail — for the inmates, they've got more bed spaces that we need, but also their spaces that have natural light, and we can let fresh air into those spaces which we couldn't do before."
Smith-Hanes said the new jail has 392 sleeping spaces for inmates, more than double the 192 beds at the original jail.
Extra beds allow the Sheriff’s Department to keep more inmates in Saline County, saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
“For the last several years, we’ve been spending between $800,000 and $1 million a year housing folks in other counties,” Smith-Hanes said.
LISTEN MORE: Phil Smith-Hanes speaks with Nate King about the new Saline County Jail
Another major upgrade for the Saline County Sheriff's Department is the programs area, which provides a space for inmates to attend informational and social programs.
Saline County Sheriff’s Department Corporal of Transportation Bernadine Herman said some of the programs held in the program rooms include AA meetings, religious gatherings, classes and counseling.
In each pod, natural light filters through a narrow window near the ceiling, and vents allow in fresh air from the outside. Inmates also have a television in their pods, allowing them to enjoy various forms of entertainment.
Another security feature in the jail is body scanners — a low-transmission x-ray device that can scan for any contraband items on inmates or their visitors.
Each door in the new facility is controlled electronically by a master control room, and each pod has an additional control room. According to Herman, each door has a camera so the control rooms can see who is calling to open the door. This reduces the dependency on radio communications and increases overall safety within the facility.
Not only do inmates get upgrades from the previous jail, but also corrections staff. The new jail includes multiple break rooms where employees can have lunch and get away from inmates or other staff.
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Sheriff’s Department employees had a say throughout the construction process, according to Internal Affairs Lieutenant Jeremiah Hayes, allowing corrections staff to provide input and direction through a transition team. The team helped office workers communicate their wants and needs to the project leads
An impactful change for employees is the addition of one staff entrance with enough lockers for every employee in the building.
“I think one of the biggest changes was the design of how people come to work,” Hayes said. “Now everybody is coming in the same door — I think it’ll help bring more camaraderie to the office.”
At the current jail, employees enter from all sides of the building, and some workers do not have a personal locker, like Hayes.
“Everybody gets to have their own little personal space, so I think that's probably what people are most excited about,” Hayes said.
Looking back on his more than three-decade career in Salina, Soldan said he recognized early on the need for a modern jail and office for the department. By 2014, when Soldan was the corrections captain under Sheriff Glen Kochanowski, they began looking for public approval for a new jail.
“He gave a lot of the same presentations and meetings, and we just couldn't get there,” Soldan said. “To be honest, the facility we were looking at building, had it not failed in 2014, we wouldn't have done what we've done here today.”
“I don't really have the words to describe what this new building is like, but you can see it for yourselves,” Soldan said.
From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4, department staff will provide tours of the new facility during an open house celebration that is open to the public.