Holmes County Sheriff outlines $100K jail upgrades, phone system overhaul

Holmes County Sheriff Tim Zimmerly and deputy Richard Haun met with the Holmes County Commissioners on Monday, Sept. 15 to discuss some maintenance issues at the county jail that will require some financial investment.

The first issue discussed was the replacement of the current intercom system in the jail.

Haun said they have a contract prepared with the company that installed the original system.

“It is outdated, and we are no longer able to operate the system,” Haun said of the system originally installed in 1994.

He said they have replaced speakers periodically; however, the technology is no longer able to supply the department with the necessary operational capabilities.

Haun said the current system provides intercom to every door in the jail, along with every egress or ingress. He said those doors all must be controlled by a central control.

He said the new system will take the intercom unit from an analog system to a digital system that will require some rewiring to the jail to bring it up to standard.

To pay for the system, the sheriff’s office will use funds from a capital improvement grant the county received not long ago.

Haun said the grant was in the amount of $100,000, and the project would cost the department around $73,000.

The remainder of those funds are expected to go toward the replacement of the facility’s chillers that control the air-conditioning.

“Our chillers that control the air-conditioning in the jail are not on the generator,” Haun said. “We need to get those on the generator.”

Haun said when the facility is hit with downtime, especially during the hot summer months, the moisture levels go sky high and the condensation creates water issues throughout the facility.

“Some days we’re mopping the floor because of the humidity,” Haun said.

He said it is simply an act of rewiring things into the panel.

“It’s something that wasn’t done when the facility was built,” Haun said.

Zimmerly said the current generator is huge and has plenty of capacity to make this project work properly.

Haun said the cost to complete that project would be $23,000-$26,000.

Commissioner Dave Hall said that during a recent meeting in Columbus, there was discussion about creating another round of grant money, and he will work to secure some of that funding, should it become available.

“I know you have other projects you’d like to tackle,” Hall said.

The main topic of discussion centered around the in-house phone system.

Haun said they are currently moving away from a hardline system to hardwiring to the Cloud.

He informed the commissioners that while one bill would be leaving, another would be taking its place.

“We’ll be moving both the in-house system and the 9-1-1 system to the Cloud,” Haun said. “We will be reducing our in-house hardware needs to just a couple of switches and some firewalls.”

He said they have a pair of statements to complete the switch, one from current provider BCS Communications and another from Spectrum.

Haun said both proposals are similar in cost, although they would require Spectrum to complete all the work to install the necessary fiber optics for 9-1-1, the jail and the sheriff’s office.

“Our in-house system is reaching end of life, and we are having some difficulties with it,” Haun said. “The technology has simply become obsolete, and we need the upgrade.”

The infrastructure cost is approximately $15,700 to get the fiber from state Route 83 to the facility. Both proposals are close to around $1,400 per month — a slight increase from what they are currently paying — and Haun said either proposal must integrate with 9-1-1 because the in-house system must be compatible with 9-1-1, which is provided by Central Square.

“That’s one of the unique situations about our office that a normal office wouldn’t encounter,” Haun said.

Haun added the biggest issue concerning the current situation is that every time a tree goes down on a phone line, the office loses service, something he said happens often.

Following the meeting, the two groups went into executive session to discuss collective bargaining matters.