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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Monday, September 20, 2004 11:43 AM CDT
Clark County Board rejects all bids for new jail

By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer

MARSHALL -- The Clark County Board on Friday rejected all bids for the construction of a new jail because they were over the county's budget.

The county had opened the bids in July and discovered they were overbudget, but had 60 days in which to make a final decision on them.

Board member Ted Perillo, who serves on the jail committee, said the board had tried eliminating an inmate wing in the jail design.

"We still can't take our original design and cut it down low enough to get within our budget," Perillo said. With or without this housing wing, he said plans for constructing a new jail along Illinois Route 1 on the south edge of Marshall would still be more than $1 million over budget.

Perillo said the jail committee will now look into constructing a new jail that is scaled down from the original design or adding onto the current jail in Marshall.

"We have to go back, sort of, to square one," Perillo said.

Voters on Nov. 5, 2002, authorized raising Clark County's sales tax by 1 percent temporarily to help fund construction of a new jail. Perillo said the county is using the extra sales tax revenue to pay off approximately $8 million in bonds it issued for the project. He said the total cost for constructing the current jail design would be about $9.2 million.

Perillo said the jail committee will get legal advice on if and how the county's bond revenue could be applied to building onto the current jail. He said extra sales tax revenue left over after bond payments are made could help fund operations at an expanded jail or a new one.

Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 348-5734.

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