The Warren County Commission has approved borrowing $3.6 million for renovating the interior of the county courthouse building to add more jail housing.The renovation will move the offices of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department to the basement of the court building to make room for new secure housing units, officials said. That will up the jail’s capacity by about 52 beds.The jail has been dealing with overcrowding in recent years.Commissioners approved contractor bids for the renovation project in June. The county will pay for the project by issuing bonds that the county agrees to pay back with interest on a set schedule.L.J. Hart and Company is the underwriter for the bond issue. Chairman Larry Hart said funding for the debt payments will come from 30 percent of Warren County’s capital improvement sales tax.Hart said the county’s solid financial position helped secure high credit scores from credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s Global. He explained that good credit leads to lower interest rates, which will reduce the long-term cost of the loan.“These solid ratings by S&P Global are something to be very proud of, and it saves the taxpayers considerable future interest expense,” Hart said.The interest rate for the bonds is about 3 percent.Hart added that county voters in April approving Prop P, a new 50 cent sales tax dedicated to law enforcement, had also helped the county’s credit rating.“That takes a lot of pressure off of paying for law enforcement from the general funds,” Hart explained, meaning the county has more flexibility to pay off debt.None of the Prop P funding is being used to fund the jail renovation. It simply improves the county’s overall financial position.If the bonds are paid off as scheduled, the county will pay an average of more than $300,000 per year from 2019 through 2033, according to information from L.J. Hart.During that time, the bonds would also accumulate about $1 million in interest, meaning the final cost to Warren County would be $4.6 million.But Southern District Commissioner Hubie Kluesner said the commission plans to pay off the debt early to reduce the cost of interest.Projections from L.J. Hart indicate that if the county’s economic growth continues at its current pace, the loan could be paid off years ahead of schedule. Even without any economic growth, it could be paid off by 2030 instead of 2033.The county can begin making extra payments on the bonds starting in 2020, according to L.J. Hart.How much extra capital improvement funding to be paid toward the debt each year will have to be decided during yearly budgeting, commissioners said.Kluesner commented that he is glad the county is taking action to remedy overcrowding at the jail.Warren County Sheriff Kevin Harrison previously told The Record the jail regularly houses more than 130 inmates, and has to use portable floor beds to fit them all.Several equipment and facility upgrades for the existing jail housing will be included in the project. Those will include swapping out old cameras for high-resolution replacements, along with installing electronic control valves within jail plumbing to prevent intentional flooding.Officials said target completion dates for the project are for the sheriff’s offices to be moved to the basement by December and the new jail housing to be built by August 2019.Warren County Courthouse / Warren County Jail