On Monday, representatives with ISG Group from Des Moines gave a presentation to the Greene County Supervisors about the services they provide.

Sheriff Jack Williams shared last week at a Supervisors meeting that the engineering firm offered to design a new multi-entity facility for law enforcement and fire department for free.

Williams says the current jail facility, which was built in 1974, along with the law enforcement center, is inadequate and outdated. They are always at capacity or over capacity on a regular basis for their eight-cell jail. The Sheriff’s office also transports inmates to other jail facilities, which costs $48 per day. They also have to separate females from males in jail, which also requires one female jail officer working whenever there is a female inmate.

Williams wants to have a 20-bed jail, along with the Sheriff’s office, the Jefferson Police and Fire departments and magistrate court all under one roof.

“The cost, instead of having three or four different buildings, you have to build and upkeep all four. And they’re all going to just one main building because the upkeep and just general maintenance, and electricity, and heating and cooling is cheaper than paying for three of four different buildings.”

Williams is also the Jefferson Fire Chief and says adding the fire station into the facility also has it’s advantages.

“The current fire station we have now is not big enough to house trucks that we would need for fire fighting procedures. We’ve had to shorten trucks up to get them to fit, which takes valuable space away for equipment and water. We cover a lot of the rural community and the bigger the tank (truck) we can get, the better off we are.”

Williams says by having ISG Group prepare the designs for free, it would save about $70,000. However, if the Supervisors wanted to move forward, ISG would require letting their company be involved in the development stages.