Editorial: $5M for jail study looks wasteful

The proposed $5 million allotment to study financing options for a new jail in Halawa is ill-conceived, on multiple fronts. Timing and planning for it seem off-kilter, and then there’s that sticker shock.

The project itself — a replacement for Oahu Community Correctional Center in Kalihi, on a state-owned site in Halawa Valley — is a needed expansion of the state’s capacity for its pretrial detainees and short-term sentences.

It’s an established fact that OCCC is overstretched so far that it has drawn serious challenges. The ACLU last year pressed for a federal investigation into “unsanitary and unsafe” conditions at all the state’s correctional facilities.

Given the acute problem, it’s disturbing to watch the state’s meandering route toward a solution. The latest twist in the path is Gov. David Ige’s insertion of $5 million into his proposed budget for fiscal year 2020.

The explanation from Ige’s administrative director, Ford Fuchigami, is that the state needs to find out “the best financing options to build this facility,” which he deemed as critical because of the state’s financial condition. Indeed, the state will have to dig deep to find the estimated $525 million to build a new jail.

Here’s the right follow-up question: Is now the time for such a study? The state has not yet settled on the size of an OCCC replacement.

Some still will argue that the state is working toward a significant reduction in the population brought into the jail for pre-trial detention, using electronic monitoring devices and other alternatives to taking custody in prison. If the state succeeds at such reform efforts, the need for jail capacity could shrink.

Without a doubt, criminal pretrial practices need reform, including a change in the “money-bail” system, in which the accused who can afford bail can walk, while those who can’t are jailed. It’s unfair, especially in cases in which the defendant represents no flight risk.

That being said, such reforms could get underway at the same time a more efficient and flexibly designed jail is being built. The OCCC intake population would be more appropriately sized, and those who do require jailing could be housed there in less-crowded conditions.

So, as leading lawmakers already have pointed out, postponing any serious investigation of financing options, at least until the state corrections agency knows what it’s financing would make much more sense than budgeting for it ahead of that decision.

Even at that point, the state would need to justify what it wants to spend on such a study. Setting aside $5 million for a financing study without pursuing standard procurement procedures certainly isn’t the way to get competitive bidding on it.

There’s no evident rationale for that estimate, which seems very high when compared to the $325,000 pricetag for a study on public-private partnership options for the last four miles of the city’s rail project. The two projects might well be apples and oranges, but if anything, the jail project, which would sit on state-owned land, seems far less complicated.

Finally, when Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Sophie Cocke reported about the budget request, the state Department of Accounting and General Services, the agency that would help to manage the project, was not aware of the request.

Plainly, the governor’s “ask” of the Legislature should be justified or, more likely, jettisoned.

Even in this high-priced era, $5 million is a lot of money that could be better spent in any number of ways.

The reworking of the Oahu prison and jail complex already has cost $5 million for a planning study. The next award of that size actually should move the project closer to reality.