State backs away from buying Oxbow Jail

A state bid to buy the Oxbow Jail is off.

Blame too little time and too little money for the failed sale, said Chris Bleak, chief of staff for House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy. A $340 million reduction in the state's surplus didn't help, either.

"The logistics just became too much," Bleak said.

State and Salt Lake County leaders, however, are still interested in working out a deal in the future. And if all of the issues can be worked out before the Legislature convenes again in 2009, a special session could possibly be called to finalize the deal.

The deal hit a snag last week, when Curtis said a demand by Salt Lake County leaders that the state remove all condition-of-probation inmate out of the Salt Lake County Metro Jail could end up being a "deal breaker."

County leaders said the state could just move the 300 prisoners directly into the Oxbow Jail, but that doesn't sit well with Curtis. The purpose of buying Oxbow is to add more beds to the state system, so filling it with inmates from the county would be pointless, he said.

Department of Corrections boss Tom Patterson said last week that he'd love to have some more bed space, but if the deal goes along like the county wants, he'll only have 184 beds left in Oxbow for other inmates.

"Any time we can get additional bed space to help dissipate our bed growth we would love to have it," Patterson said. "If however, the state gets the jail and we have to populate it with county inmates, that doesn't make much sense because it doesn't help with our growth."

Salt Lake County leaders want the deal to happen. The county will continue to negotiate with House leadership and the Lt. Governor's Office in an effort to get rid of the long-shuttered jail, Salt Lake County Council Chairman Michael Jensen said.

"With the rush of the end of the session and with so much left to do, we just felt like we needed to take more time," Jensen said. "We agreed we want to go forward, we just need to wok out some of the finer points and the details."

Both sides are still negotiating on a sale price, and an appraisal on the Oxbow Jail is still in the works. Other details left to be negotiated include the timing of the release of the condition-of-probation inmates as well as the timing of the $6 million retrofit of the jail if the state purchases it.

The county also wants to get rid of the jail to solve a "long-standing issue of jail reimbursement that's plagued Salt Lake County and counties in general for years and years and years," Jensen said.