CIP update: county aligns site costs for Sheriff’s headquarters and evidence storage; bidding expected late 2025

County staff updated commissioners on May 6 about a reallocation of site costs between the Sheriff’s Office headquarters project and a separate evidence-storage building. The change reassigns certain site- and phase-related costs from the second phase into the first phase; staff said the adjustment is a net zero across the overall project budget but moves dollars to align with the phased work on site development.

Project leads said design and agency reviews are substantially complete and that the remaining approvals — including town planning and the local fire marshal — need to be scheduled. Staff said that once town approvals and final plan sign-offs are obtained they will finalize bid documents and take procurement steps; county staff estimated that if the scheduling and review process proceeds without major delay the earliest realistic timeline for going to bid would be late 2025, with construction start to follow procurement timelines.

Commissioners asked whether the project cost estimates had been escalated to reflect post-pandemic construction pricing; staff said they had applied escalation assumptions when rolling forward from earlier estimates and that procurement would produce firm bid numbers. No new appropriations or votes were taken at the update; the action was informational with staff advising commissioners of the timing and site-cost reallocation.

Staff also noted that because some site work had been budgeted in prior years, the current request reflects a reclassification and not an increase in the county’s overall obligation for the combined project.