Jail asks
to replace
tech systems
Staff writer
Marion County commissioners are weighing an unbudgeted upgrade of a county jail control system that officials say has become increasingly unreliable and difficult to service 14 years after the jail was built.
Based on vendor quotes, the estimated replacement cost for the system, which controls doors, intercoms, lighting, water, and fire alarms, is between $287,000 and $315,000.
“It’s really becoming evident we’ve got the systems dying,” jail administrator Jim Philpott said at the Monday’s county commissioner meeting. “Everything is getting pretty outdated. Most of the equipment is not serviceable. Parts aren’t easy to get hold of.”
An upgrade was not budgeted for the current year, county administrator Tina Spencer said, but she called it critical infrastructure that couldn’t be deferred indefinitely.
“This is not something you want to hear about in the middle of a budget year,” she said. “For future projects, we need to establish a structured capital planning process for all of our facilities, including setting aside dedicated funds every year, specifically earmarked for future replacement of major building systems.”
Philpott said one of the facility’s two main control stations has been going down regularly and required workarounds to keep running. Fire alarm panels face the same problem. The company that installed them has kept an old Windows 7 laptop specifically to reprogram the obsolete system.
Commissioner Clarke Dirks was concerned about whether upgrades also would obsolete in a few years.
“I don’t think so,” Philpott said. “But technologies advance in leaps and bounds, so who knows? This would definitely be the newest and greatest stuff right now. “
Correctional industry reports suggest that the lifespan of control systems range from 7 to 15 years.
A 2020 white paper titled “The deferred maintenance crisis” and published by the criminal justice consulting firm CGL Companies, which manages correctional systems for profit, places the life cycle of jail security systems at seven years.
A May, 2025, article in the independent trade publication Correctional News quoted Chris Nielsen, a principal with R&N Systems Design, a security design consulting firm, stressing the importance of “future-proofing” in security system upgrades so that they last 10 to 15 years.
Commissioners did not vote on the matter Monday but asked for a more detailed breakdown to include vendor names, component prices, and service agreement plans.