The building that houses the Houston County Community Corrections program has seen better days.

Formerly the county jail, Houston County commissioners are faced with making improvements to the 22-year-old building on North Oates Street. But commissioners hope that they can at least wait until the new budget year, which begins in October.

"We realize that we've got some issues down there," Commission Chairman Mark Culver said.

While floor tiles need replacing and walls need to be repainted, the repairs the county must make stem from a 2003 inspection by the state fire marshal. The entire building, said county maintenance director Sean Curtis, must be brought up to the life safety standards of the National Fire Protection Association.

"What it means is we're going to have to update the fire alarm system," Curtis said.

The old jail has been equipped with a wet sprinkler system, versus the old dry system that sprayed a powder instead of water. But the county must also make improvements to the building's smoke detectors as well as ventilation.

It will cost the county about $6,000 to $7,000 to bring in an electrical engineer to survey the building, Curtis said. The actual improvements could run around $50,000.

But the building's age has led to other problems with boilers and the electrical system. A survey by a mechanical engineer to identify all electrical problems could cost as much as $40,000, Curtis said. And that's just to look.

Culver said the county is not trying to avoid making the improvements, the commission would just like to budget money for the updates in the 2005 fiscal year. The state fire marshal's requirements will be the county's priority among improvements, he said.

"The building has been like it is for many, many years," Culver said. "There are systems in place. It's not like it's an unsafe building at all. It just needs to be updated."

Gary Knight, Houston County Community Corrections director, said the program installed sprinklers after the fire marshal's visit. However, walls built to create a new room where the jail kitchen was once located were also found to be a problem because the state fire marshal had not approved them before they were built.

Knight said the walls were built to construction codes.

"This place is a mansion compared to what it used to be," Knight said. "? Plus, it sat idle for almost a year."

Community Corrections, an alternative sentencing work-release program, moved into the building in November 2002. The program currently has 57 male inmates and 27 female inmates who work jobs but return to the facility when not at work or attending counseling.

The program can hold up to 144 inmates. From October 2003 to April 2004, the Community Corrections program has collected $92,180 in court fines and costs from inmates in the program. Another $296,549 has been collected to cover other fees and costs incurred by inmates. The inmates forfeit 30 percent of their gross salary in order to participate in the work-release program rather than serve their sentence in county jail or a state prison.

"That program is a good program in that it generates funds and covers its own expenses," Culver said. "The commission will have to make a determination -- in order to keep that program going we'll have to invest in that building."