Schuylkill County commissioners approve more time for prerelease center site option analysis

Amy Marchiano, Republican & Herald, Pottsville, Pa.
·2 min read

POTTSVILLE — The Schuylkill County commissioners have allotted more time for a site option analysis for a prerelease center as they continue to stress the need for such a facility to ease prison overcrowding but also fret about its price tag.

The commissioners voted Wednesday to give Mechanicsburg-based Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates until July 31 to finish the analysis, the second extension for what was originally a November deadline.

Last May, the commissioners approved paying $28,880 to examine the need for such a center, also known as an intermediate punishment center, options for where it could be located and a cost comparison. As of Wednesday, $2,880 of that money remained unspent, Controller Sharyn Yackenchick said.

The facility would house nonviolent offenders and those with drug, alcohol and mental health issues.

“It’s been an issue that’s been looked at, kicked around and worked on,” Commissioner Barron L. “Boots” Hetherington said at the weekly commissioners meeting.

In 2011, bids for a facility were $1 million more than the $3.2 million budgeted.

“It’s got to be in the best financial sense,” Commissioner Gary J. Hess said Wednesday of the cost.

The county has spent “well over $10 million” since 2016 toward overcrowding costs, including having inmates housed in jails in other counties, according to Hess.

“We have treatment programs, but we don’t have room to treat these folks,” Hess said.

The county has allocated $4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to put toward a prerelease center. ARPA money must be allocated by the end of this year and spent by 2026.

In all, the county received $27,415,708 in ARPA funds from Washington.

The Schuylkill County Prison is licensed for 277 inmates.

Commissioners Chairman Larry Padora said an ad hoc committee involving President Judge Jacqueline L. Russell, prison Warden David J. Wapinsky, the commissioners and others are trying to arrange a meeting with Crabtree Rohrbaugh.

After the meeting, Padora said “cost estimates are all over the place” for a prerelease center, including a “wish-list” amount as high as $26 million, which he called “ridiculous.”

“It is something I do believe is needed in the county, but it has to be a realistic project,” Padora said.

The former Schuylkill Transportation System building in Saint Clair Industrial Park has been discussed as a possible location for a prerelease center.