Fourteen months after voter approval, construction officially begins next week on the new Osage County Law Enforcement Center in Lyndon.
A groundbreaking ceremony will take place on the front lawn of the current Osage County Sheriff’s Office at 2 pm Monday. It may be the middle of 2024 before the facility is fully constructed.
The new law enforcement complex, announced at $18 million at the time of last year’s vote, will more than quadruple the current amount of jail beds from 30 to over 140. It will also house all aspects of county law enforcement and emergency management. Funding will come through a four-year, half-cent sales tax to avoid any possible increase in property taxes for county residents, and Sheriff Chris Wells has said the facility could generate upwards of $1.4 million for county operations even if jail beds are 80 percent full.
Voters approved the new facility by a better than 2-to-1 margin in February 2022.
