Sheriff Applying For Jail Grant

MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio-The state of Ohio is allocating money to law enforcement agents for COVID related jailing needs. 

Muskingum County sheriff Matt Lutz sees this as an opportunity to help fund the construction of a new jail for the county. The county’s current jail has had a longstanding overcrowding problem that Lutz has been trying to solve since 2015. 

“The pandemic has kind of magnified the needs because of not having enough space in the jail to isolate and separate and segregate different inmates. So when this grant was announced, the commissioners contacted me and we started the dialogue of applying for this grant.”, Lutz told WHIZ.

The funding comes from Ohio senate Bill 310. The bill awards funds to local entities based off of a merit based system. 

“Gathering the needs of the county, and finding out what’s going on in your county. Then, obviously, there’s going to be a bunch of questions to ask, they’re going to basically be asking us why we need this new jail. There’s gonna be a lot of explanation and information to gather and put together, in the application.”, Lutz continued.

The county will need to have their application and proposal sent to the state by June 30th.