McHenry Co.: We have room for your inmates

With traditional funding sources like property taxes, sales taxes and building permits continuing to free fall, McHenry County is on the lookout for new ways to generate revenue. Sheriff Keith Nygren may have found one by turning to an old place.

Nygren said he is considering a plan to convert an out-of-use portion of the old county jail area of the McHenry County Government Center into a secure setting to hold up to 34 inmates.

The sheriff would then rent those to other jurisdictions in need of somewhere to hold their detainees, generating as much as $1 million a year for county coffers.

Based on the needs of agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service, Nygren believes those beds would fill up almost instantly, at a going rate of $85 per day.

The infrastructure for the additional detention space - the doors, locks, cells, etc. - already is in place. Additional work to prepare the space has been completed with labor from jail inmates.

"What we're trying to figure out now is how we could staff it without asking for additional personnel," Nygren said.

Although the idea has yet to be formally proposed to the county board, Yvonne Barnes, chairman of the board's Law and Justice Committee, said she is aware of the effort, and so far encouraged by it.

"We're always looking for ways to grow our revenues," she said. "It would be shame if we didn't take advantage of it."

Renting out space in the jail is nothing new for McHenry County. The jail currently rents about 300 cells daily to agencies include ICE, the Marshals Service and Kane County, earning the county about $12 million a year, Nygren said.