Lamar County Sheriff Danny Rigel is hoping to feel better heating and air conditioning in the Law Enforcement Complex in Purvis after the software that regulates the temperature in certain parts of the facility are updated.
At Monday’s Board of Supervisors meeting at the William J. “Pete” Gamble III County Courthouse, the board approved spending $5,492 for hardware, software and installation with WME Applied Systems-Controls Division to upgrade and/or replace the existing JCI Niagara AX FX (20) jail monitoring system.
County Administrator Joseph “Jody” Waits said the temperature is regulated by dampers on each vent.
“The air is flowing all the time and the dampers will shut at certain times,” he said. “Several of those had gone bad and we had been working on getting those corrected.”
Rigel said the complex is not being heating and cooled efficiently.
“The whole building wasn’t initially designed the right way because you can’t differentiate from the justice court, the sheriff’s office and the jail,” he said. “It’s all one system. The courtroom can be burning up hot and the sheriff’s office will be cold. You can’t find a happy medium to really control it. I think $6,000 is a good price for the update.”
Waits said the remote monitoring system controls the heating and air conditioning.
“That software is outdated,” he said. “The controls are almost nonexistent, so you have hot and cold zones throughout the jail. So, by spending that money to update that system, it will give us the ability to then monitor, set parameters and control that better so that the souls in the jail are more comfortable and the utility bills are improved. It provides for a much more efficient process.”
Rigel said the crew that keeps the building in shape has done an outstanding job.
“The wear on the building comes with time, but the grand jury, the health department and the fire marshal all give it A-plus ratings because of the maintenance that is done on it,” he said.
