New police station seed money in Harrisburg budget
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A line item in the capital projects portion of Harrisburg's new municipal budget adopted Monday takes the first step toward what could become a new police station in the city.
The new budget includes $200,000 in the Capital Improvements Fund for "Missouri St Phase II/Police Station."
Previously the city had budgeted $400,000 towards rebuilding Missouri Street, but since the tornado two grant awards have been received that will completely cover the cost of raising the street out of the flood plain.
The reallocation this year allows the city to begin planning for the station should the council give the go-ahead.
Such a move would be applauded by both Police Chief Bob Smith and Saline County Sheriff Keith Brown who say their departments have simply outgrown the Saline County Law Enforcement and Detention Center that they've shared since the early 1990s.
"We're just on top of each other," Brown said. "Anywhere from parking space, to space in the evidence room to guys being on top of each other in the squad room."
"We're running out of room, running out of storage, we don't have anywhere to expand," Smith said.
"When this place was at its inception in '93, there was room for everybody," Smith said, but since then, both departments have grown, not so much in head count but in the services they provide.
"Eventually it comes down to it takes more room," he added.
The sheriff noted changes in state law require the agencies to now keep more files then they once did, and in some cases, keep those files longer. Also, new rules require evidence to be kept much longer.
The building houses not only the two agencies, but central dispatch and the 911 system in the north part of the building. The south wing houses the state's attorney's office and a small courtroom which doubled as a command center in the aftermath of the tornado.
The detention center downstairs normally holds around 75 to 80 prisoners according to the daily population counts over the last few recent months.
The squad room and interview rooms are not only used by the two local law enforcement agencies on a daily basis but also by individual officers of the Southern Illinois Drug Task Force, Illinois State Police, Secretary of State Police, Attorney-General Police, "and it's not uncommon for federal agents (to be) in the facility," Brown said.
The sheriff remembers working as a former Harrisburg policeman in the basement of city hall, and later as a state trooper using the sheriff's space in the basement of the courthouse. Just as the agencies outgrew those facilities in the past, history is repeating itself today.
Smith said talks began among city officials about the possibility of a new station when the city and county renegotiated its rent agreement two years ago.
The department leases about 700 square feet in office space and a storage closet, but then also gets use of three cubicles in the squad room and other common space.
Smith doesn't have any figures yet on what type of building or size requirements would be needed. That would come about in a formal planning stage only if and when the council formally votes to move forward on such a project.
Smith though says he would encourage that the city not, "only look at what we need right now, but look at what we will need in the future."