State Representative Jones Supports Passing of House Bill 101

COLUMBUS –State Representative Don Jones (R-Freeport) announced his support of legislation that will establish a County Jail Construction Funding Formula, which passed out of the Ohio House this week. 

“HB 101 is a great bill and I am proud to have supported it,” said Jones. “This bill will create a formula that will provide significant investments in our communities to ensure we have the proper correctional facilities we need. I am thankful for the representatives who introduced this bill and look forward to it passing the senate.

Under House Bill 101, the County Jail Construction Funding Formula would be structured similarly to that of Ohio’s school construction formula, which has been in place for over two decades and has proven to be very successful in assisting school districts with major construction projects.

The legislation would allow the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) to work in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Correction (ODC) to develop the funding formula based on the following factors:

• Rank counties and award them funds based on need, such as income per capita, property value, and sales tax revenue capacity.
• Develop a matching program where the state will provide a percentage of construction costs of a county jail based on the same factors used in ranking. 
• OFCC and ODC will work directly with the respective county to establish the best possible solution for a new jail using projections of use and other means of establishing the size of a jail.

The program created by this legislation will receive funding on the biennium from the state capital budget. The last capital budget passed allocated $50 million for jail construction.