Retired corrections official to run jail

Nearly two weeks ago, Whitley County got an ultimatum from the state Department of Corrections to either hire a jail administrator to run the Whitley County Jail and make significant improvements, or shut down the facility, which opened last August.
During a special meeting Monday morning, one day shy of the state’s deadline, the Whitley County Fiscal Court voted to hire Forrest Sexton, a retired correction’s official, as the new administrator, but what authority Sexton will have to implement changes at the facility are still to be determined.
Whitley County Jailer Jerry Taylor, who Correction’s Commissioner John D. Rees said didn’t know what was going on in his own facility during the May 24 hearing, said that he is willing to work with Sexton, but Taylor vowed that he will continue to be in charge at the jail.
“I was elected jailer by the people of Whitley County. Just as I explained to Mr. Sexton, I will remain the jailer of Whitley County. I will cooperate with this gentleman any way that I can, but I will be the man in charge at that jail, have no doubt about it,” Taylor told the fiscal court.
Sexton, who is a Wayne County resident, said he looks forward to working with Taylor, and going in and looking at the jail from a different perspective to make some changes.
“I worked with corrections a long time, and I know what the policies and procedures are,” Sexton said. “I met with Jerry last Friday. He took me on a tour of the jail. We talked about some things that can be done, and that he is aware of that need to be fixed.”
Sexton said there are some things he saw at the jail that he would do differently, but said that he wouldn’t release those until he talked with Taylor first about it.
“Having just walked through the jail, I think my biggest is overcoming the philosophies, and ideas that Jerry and I might have. I’m sure there are going to be some differences,” Sexton said.
Sexton worked in the Kentucky Department of Corrections Division of Probation and Parole for nearly 18 years, and after his retirement he worked as the class ‘D’ coordinator at the Wayne County Detention Center for three years.
With the Knox County Jail closed, Whitley County is housing all of Knox County’s prisoners.
Sexton will make $50,000 per year as jail administrator, with Whitley County picking up half the tab, and Knox County picking up the remainder.
Knox County Judge-Executive Raymond Smith said that it was in his county’s best interest to help keep the Whitley County Jail open.
“Here’s the big problem. There is not 300 beds, or 250 beds, or 200 jail beds available in this state because everybody is overcrowded. Where we found to take our prisoners is about a five hour, one-way trip. So half of his salary is about one week of our transportation and housing costs,” Smith said adding that it would have cost his county another $400,000 annually to house its prisoners elsewhere.
Patrick said Whitley County will find the money to pay their portion of Sexton’s salary, but he declined to say where the county was going to get the money.
Patrick estimated that it would cost Whitley County about $600,000 more per year to ship county prisoners elsewhere.
He said Sexton has the authority to do things that need to be done to bring the jail in compliance with state standards.
“He determines what those things are, and recommends that they be done,” Patrick said. “I don’t know if he can do anything independent of the jailer, but if they are not done, I am confident that the Department of Corrections will have something to say about the situation. The fiscal court will be made aware of those recommendations also.”
Sexton was one of three applicants for the job, and Sexton is the one, who the Department of Corrections recommended.
Patrick said he’s not sure how long Sexton will be employed as administrator.
During Monday’s meeting, Taylor criticized the correction’s cabinet ruling that the jail needed an outside administrator, and told fiscal court members Monday that he felt the matter was a political conspiracy against him.
“If you would tell the people the truth here this morning, you knew exactly what the commissioner was going to do the other day. The commissioner, and you had fun, but it won’t be that much fun the next time,” Taylor said. “I believe that jail that sits up there on the hill that he sat up there and said was dangerous to the community, and dangerous to the inmates, if that be the case, why haven’t any of you gentlemen been up there.
“You didn’t have money for this, and you didn’t have money for that, but all of the sudden you can come up with $25,000.”
He also stated that the county’s deficit isn’t solely the fault of the jail, and said it has been building since the county finished in the hole financially last fiscal year.
Taylor said Patrick told reporters that the county finished the fiscal year last year slightly in the black, but that the county hadn’t paid its bills at that time.
When asked by Taylor how much the new jail cost, Patrick estimated that the total cost was over $7 million for the 150-bed facility, which prompted Taylor to reply that a 250-bed jail would have cost about $8 million.
Taylor also complained that construction was never actually finished on the jail since the jail still has leaks, and some toilets that have never worked.
Cleland Thorpe, a local resident who ran against Taylor for the jailer’s position nearly seven years ago, told fiscal court members that he felt there was probably enough blame to “cover a whole slew of people.”
Thorpe did agree with Taylor that he feels magistrates should have been up at the jail examining the jail to make sure it was built properly.
“I think that is why we put you all in office was to manage the county’s affairs that happened to be one of them,” Thorpe said. “We are going to wind up with an occupational tax, and probably an increase in the property tax. I just want the world and everybody in Whitley County to know that I don’t appreciate it.”
Thorpe said he thinks the prisoners need to be feed properly, but that “we don’t have to fed them like they are at the Ritz.”
Thorpe said one thing he thinks could be done to cut expenses is to turn out the lights at 10 p.m., instead of allowing inmates to stay up playing poker at night.
“I don’t know about the cleanliness of that thing, but if you have 150 prisoners up there, they should be cleaning the place,” Thorpe said. “We have an empty jail over here that needs to be disposed of or something to help cut back on this tax problem. The taxpayers are the ones being punished because of this whole thing.”