Halifax County administrative staff Monday were directed by commissioners to negotiate a contract with Moseley Architects for the design and construction of a new detention center.

The action came after Assistant County Manager Thomas Everette proposed to the board to accept Moseley as the qualified architect for the project. 

The county in October had advertised requests for qualifications for the project. Two firms submitted RFQs, Everette said. The county received one from Moseley and the other from K2M Designs.

“Both are highly qualified,” Everette said, but with Moseley having done previous projects in the county, that firm was his recommendation.

Following the recommendation, which the board would later in the discussion unanimously approve, Chair Vernon Bryant asked, “How are we going to pay for this?”

County Manager Dia Denton said what comes next in the process is that staff will work on a contract over the next month or two and bring it back. “We will try to get an estimate of what that piece of the project will be.”

The funds would most likely come from the fund balance.

Bryant said, “I know that jail is going to be an expensive proposition. Do we need it? Yes, but we need to be mindful of the citizens in this county and the taxpayers. We’ve just got to be forward thinking on how we’re going to pay for it. I don’t want to put something out there and then not do it.”

The county doesn’t expend funds on accepting the qualifications, County Attorney Glynn Rollins explained. “We don’t have a contract with anyone yet. We’re simply saying that we recommend that Moseley be the firm we negotiate with. Before you sign a contract you’ll have to appropriate the money and go through a project ordinance to be able to enter a contract with Moseley.”

Denton said Moseley is the most known architect in North Carolina for building detention centers. “Moseley is intimately familiar with the laws and the building codes they would be required to follow in building a detention center. We’ve also toured a few different detention centers and Moseley designed all of those.”

Denton said staff particularly liked their designs, especially with the Granville County facility. “It’s really attractive to us from an efficiency point of view and the ability to staff the detention center. So their experience is unmatched.”

Commissioner Sammy Webb, whose platform included a new jail, said, “Yay,” when the matter came up on the agenda. 

He said later in the discussion that for the past several weeks the jail population has been 190 in a facility that was designed to hold 85. “Of that 190, about 40 to 50 have been housed at other jails across the state. We are overcrowded every day.”

To ease the overcrowding, the county is paying $50 per day for each inmate that has to be housed elsewhere, he said.

He said, however, “Other counties are turning our inmates away because they’re trouble. My concern is we got off the hook from building Weldon City Schools and we got off the hook from building Eastman.”

The jail project, he said, “Is the largest and most expensive project for the county in years. After we get past this juncture, when will we need to look at how much this is going to cost and we’re going to fix it?”

Denton said several months ago the county’s financial advisors came and gave scenarios on what the debt service would look like on a $30 million jail, a $40 million facility and a $50 million detention center and what the funding options would be. “Commissioner Webb is absolutely right. We are paying a fortune to house these inmates in other jails. That amount of money would be a nice dent in a debt service payment.”

She said, however, when the planning begins, there will likely be a tax increase. “However, you do have some debt rolling off in 2026. If we take that into account along with our financial advisors we can present to you a picture of what that will look like and how to pay for it. What I will likely come back and ask you for is what our limits will be. We did not do that for past projects, meaning we bid it without having you tell us what you wanted to spend on it.”

She reminded the board, “That the more inmates you have, you have to remember staffing and the ability to keep the staff safe, the inmates safe, and to keep the jail a safe environment.”