TOLEDO, Ohio — Lucas County is working on its 2025 budget plan.
County commissioners held a meeting Tuesday with departments and elected officials to discuss what they're looking at for the year ahead. One of those topics involved their biggest project yet: a new county jail.
In November, county commissioners said the new jail was estimated to cost about $203 million. However, now that cost is estimated to be 30% higher, costing more than $290 million.
Commissioners said they are going to work to reduce that cost in a few ways.
One way is waiting until interest rates go down.
Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken said this is critical and a major factor in getting the cost down.
"When you borrow lots of money at a higher rate, the cost is too much. You see homeowners out there all over waiting for interest rate cuts," Gerken said. "We believe they're coming. They're not here today. We didn't want to say at this budget meeting, 'The jail's going to cost 'X' millions of dollars.' We don't know yet. We know it's going to be expensive but we're going to put our best budget forward."
Another way they are looking at lowering the cost is by taking some things out. This includes reducing the building's square footage, redesigning the foundation, changing the exterior building materials, reduction in generators and fuel storage, and redesigning the HVAC.
"Bringing cost down through a collaborative effort and we have to keep an eye on the interest rates," Gerken said. "It makes no sense to pull the trigger on a cost right now when we know there is going to be a change."
Right now, the initial cost would mean they would have to pay $16.8 million as their annual debt for the next 35 years.
Commissioners said they do not plan on creating a tax levy to ask the public for any of these funds.