The computer system that controls the doors at the Pulaski County Justice Center will soon have to be replaced.
Sheriff Jeff Richwine told the county council Monday that the system is original to the building. “This thing’s starting to have some glitches, and we were told maybe as long as a year ago that it’s just one step away from going completely off and not working anymore,” he said. “The whole thing’s obsolete, can’t get any parts for it.”
He said that’s led to some challenges. “We can’t get keypads anymore for the door, so we’ve switched keypads around to try to keep the doors going,” he explained. “We had one of the sliders that gets us back into the jail and the dispatch center, that keypad messed up, so we finally got Stanley to come here and look at it. It was a pretty easy fix, but then he kind of looked around and he said, ‘There are some issues going on here.’ So he said, ‘I would be concerned about trying to make this to your budget time.'”
Richwine said he’s contacted two companies about replacing the system. Council President Jay Sullivan suggested that the sheriff look into making a down payment out of funds that are already in the sheriff’s budget, then budgeting money next year to pay the remainder of the cost.
Richwine plans to discuss the issue with the county commissioners next week, before finalizing arrangements with the county council next month.
