To pay for the new regional jail, authorities were going to sell some bonds. The sale was delayed by a few weeks, and with the market constantly changing, the delay changed everything.

Now, the counties involved with the jail will have to allocate a good deal of money over the long term.

“What happened was, that week or two delay cost the authority and taxpayers of Warren, Shenandoah and rappahannock Counties an additional one cent,” says Warren County Sheriff Daniel McEathron.

That one cent turned into $1.7 million they are now short.

The delay was due to unhappy citizens, who complained about the jail, and forced the company who sold the bonds to remove the jail from a group sale.

This forced the jail bonds to be sold on their own and after the interest rate went up.

“As a matter of having that disruption, it cost over a 30 year period, over a million and a half dollars,” says McEathron.

“What does it mean annually for the localities? Essentially that it's gonna add just under 50,000 dollars a year debt service for the RSW Jail Authority,” says Warren County Administrator Douglas Stanley.

Warren County alone is responsible for about 50 percent of that money, which means almost $25,000 annually.

Stanley says that may not sound like much, but it's a big deal.

“That's a police vehicle a year, that's another teaching aid position, it would mean a lot to some of our nonprofits. So it doesn't sound like much but at the end of the day it's a shame you lose almost $2 million at the end of the day for no cause on our part,” says Stanley.”

Because it was no cause on their part, they're looking to see if there is anything they can do to get the lost money back.

“The Regional Jail Authority board voted just to ask our legal counsel if we have any recourse against those that caused this delay. It wasn't that we're taking any action, it's finding out is there any recourse, so that's what we've tasked our attorney with and we'll see what they come back with.”

The next meeting of the Regional Jail Authority will take place July 26th when they hope to have an answer to that question.

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