County Transfers Title On Adelanto Detention Facilty To The State

(September 13) The county of San Bernardino, which has expended $145 million and counting of money available to it on post-acquisition improvements  to the Adelanto Detention Center Project, has transferred title to the facility, for which it paid more than $31 million in 2005, to the state of California.
The county will now be obliged to lease the prison back from the state so it can be utilized by the sheriff’s department as its primary prisoner holding facility.
In April 2005, the county purchased what was then a 500-bed facility from the Moreland Family Trust for $31.2 million. In 2010, the county  committed $120 million toward the expansion of the facility by another 1,368 jail beds, choosing Bellevue, Washington-based Lydig Construction, Inc. as the contractor, under what was originally slated as a not-to-exceed construction cost of $90,951,937. Since that time, the construction cost has escalated by more than $26 million to $118,310,972.
The Public Safety and Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007, also known and referred to as AB 900, became law on May 3, 2007. In March 2008 the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved making an application to the Corrections Standards Authority of the State of California for AB 900 funding in the amount of $100,000,000 to construct the aforementioned 1,368 additional  beds at the Adelanto Detention Center. The $100 million grant was conceptually approved by the state. On July 13, 2010, the county board of supervisors accepted the terms dictated under AB 900 for the county to receive the $100 million in funding by approving a so-called project delivery and construction agreement, which established the various obligations of the county, the State Public Works Board, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the Board of State and Community Corrections with regard to the project, including general terms and termination, cost sharing, scope, cost, schedule, bidding and construction, post project completion and records retention.
The AB 900 jail construction funds are being initially administered by the State Public Works Board and funded by interim loans advanced by the Pooled Money Investment Board and/or the state of California’s general fund.
According to Carl Alban, the director of the county architecture & engineering department, “The State Public Works Board intends to refinance its interim loan obligations through the issuance of lease-revenue bonds. This financing mechanism requires the State Public Works Board, on behalf of the state of California, to hold ownership interest of the jail facilities subject to the bonds being sold and paid off (estimated at 30 years). The State Public Works Board will lease the jail facilities to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, who will in turn sublease the jail facilities to the county for its use and operation in the care and custody of county inmates. Once the bonds are paid in full by the state, ownership of the facility would be vested in the county. The county has committed to staff and operate the project in accordance with state guidelines within 90 days of construction completion and agreed to operate and maintain the facilities until the bonds are repaid.”

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