County Resolves Jail Construction Funding by Issuing $8.2 Million in Bonds

SAN ANGELO, TX -- Tom Green County Commissioners Tuesday afternoon adopted an order to accept the low bid on $8.2 million in revenue bonds and certificates of obligation bonds to complete funding for the new jail construction project.  

County Judge Steve Floyd said he was relieved that after four or five months of negotiations the court was able to come up with a solution which allows for completion of the new jail.  Construction has been underway for almost a year and the county ran into a major problem when the Texas Commission on Jail Standards told the court in late 2017 that the plan to run two jails, the existing jail downtown and the new facility located north of San Angelo on U.S. 67 by the Roy K. Robb center would require two full staffs at a cost of about $2 million per year.  Judge Floyd said that operating cost was unaffordable so they had to come up with a different plan.

The solution was to increase the size of the new jail to meet the requirements of jail standards and shut down the old jail as soon as the new one becomes operational.  That required adding new pods and the court voted to change the scope of the current construction project to include the new pods. The increase in cost required issuing the additional $8.2 million in debt.  

There were ten bidders for the certificates of obligation and the lowest bid was from P&C Capital Markets at 3.02 percent.  The Second lowest bid was 3.12 percent. Judge Floyd said the tax rate impact will be seven tenths of one cent to the interest and sinking debt service.  Commissioners won’t set that rate until the budget process later this summer.