Fact-checking the county's bond website

“No Longer Meets Standards”; checklist row “Meets Iowa Jail Standards: ✗”, sourced “Iowa Administrative Code, Chapter 50”

The State Jail Inspector, applying Chapter 50, found zero non-compliance items in both 2025 and 2026 (184 and 186 compliance items; 70 N/A each year), certified designed capacity under 50.6(5), and wrote that the jail is “the cleanest that I have observed.” The county's likely defense is that the checklist compares the unrenovated portion of the facility to current standards, the ones a new building must meet, and the housing areas do not meet those. That is a real distinction, and the county's homepage states it correctly (see the next entry).

“The current jail's cells are approximately 70 square feet, meeting standards established in 1981. Current standards require additional space for multiple-occupancy cells.”

Per Shive-Hattery's July 9, 2026 CJCC presentation (Granicus clip 3697), the new facility's single-occupancy cells “work out to be 70 square feet,” the same size as the current cells. Two-person cells are 92 SF gross (70 SF unencumbered plus about 22 SF of fixtures), produced by the §50.8(1)b formula: 2 occupants × 35 SF unencumbered. The county's claim that “current standards require additional space for multiple-occupancy cells” is true against the 1981 grandfathered regime (§50.5, which allows a two-person cell as small as 60 SF gross at 16 hours a day or less). It is false against the standard Iowa applied to new-construction jails from 1984 to 2001 (§50.6), which required 120 SF gross for a two-person cell. The proposed two-person cells are smaller than what Iowa required for new jails through 2001. A reader of the county's page would infer the new jail has bigger cells than the current one. For single cells it does not, and for two-person cells the gross size is smaller than the 1984 standard.

FCI 104.8%; “An FCI above 60% is considered ‘Very Poor’”

The number matches the 2022 Faithful+Gould Facility Condition Assessment, and the deterioration is documented. Two omissions. First, the index is a 2022 snapshot that prices total deferred maintenance against replacement value. The county has since let a $1,885,400 stabilization contract (Peak Construction Group, January 2026) for the structural shell, roof, and HVAC, the deterioration behind the number. The fact sheet cites the 2022 index without noting the repair spending in progress. Second, the State Inspector's only physical-condition concern in 2025 and 2026 was the building deterioration covered by that same stabilization scope.

“Leaking pipes and an aging HVAC system lead to poor air quality and mold, creating health and safety risks”

No air-quality or mold finding appears in either state inspection, and no environmental testing has been published. The physical deterioration (leaks, HVAC condition) is documented; the health-outcome claim is not.

“The building does not meet accessibility guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act”, linking a 2018 evaluation

The 2018 WT Group audit (166 findings) exists, and it did not inspect the secure jail housing; see the Cost Analysis page's ADA Audit section. The page omits that the county has held the audit and its phased remediation plan, with Phase 1 marked “should be completed immediately,” since February 2019, and that the public record shows no transition-plan execution in the seven years since. Deficiencies left unremediated are cited as grounds for replacement.

“Exceeded its functional capacity for more than 30 years”

True only against the 46-bed 1981 design. Against the 92-bed rated capacity, the in-house population has been under it in every fiscal year on record (in-house average daily population peaked at 63.39 in FY19). Against the 65-bed “functional capacity,” a figure with no documented origin before May 2024, the claim projects a 2024 number back three decades. The fact sheet does not say which capacity it means.

“The building has a total of 28,500 square feet”

Shive-Hattery Vol. I, the county's needs assessment, states the building is 27,000 square feet. The Need page says 28,500 and cites nothing. An ancillary structure or garage could account for the difference, but no county document says so, and the July 9, 2026 CJCC transcript, where Shive-Hattery walked through the new facility's floor areas in detail, contains no 28,500 figure for the existing building. The needs assessment and the bond site disagree.

“To meet today's operational needs and classification requirements, the capacity is 65 inmates”

The 65 figure appears in no Iowa Administrative Code provision, no Iowa Department of Corrections document, and no written Sheriff's policy found to date. Its earliest public appearance is a Shive-Hattery presenter on May 29, 2024. Records request RR-003 (May 2026) asked for the justification and methodology behind the out-of-county housing appropriations the cap drives. The county produced no responsive document; the Auditor's office stated informally that the line exists to “allow room in the budget for unforeseen circumstances.” Whether the cap is a written rule subject to Iowa Code §356.44 judicial approval is unresolved. See the Records page.

“The building was not designed or built to accommodate any expansion. The footings are too shallow for upward expansion and the current facility is landlocked, preventing outward expansion.”

The words “footings” and “landlocked” appear in no published county document: not Vol. I, not the 2022 Facility Condition Assessment, not the 2023 or 2024 Axiom structural assessments. Vol. I's scope required “recommendations on renovating existing facilities versus building new facilities”; the delivered document contains no renovation-versus-new analysis. The claims may be true, and a downtown parcel is constrained, but the FAQ cites nothing. On July 9, 2026 the county paid $5.5 million for the block west of its Health and Human Services Building, a few hundred feet from the jail at 511 S. Capitol Street, adding to county holdings on that block. No county document addresses whether any nearby county land could support jail expansion. No engineering basis for the footings claim has been published.

“The kitchen and mechanical components of the building will also be sized to accommodate expansion of the jail to support an additional 100 housing beds if needed in the future.”

Accurate: 140 design capacity plus 100 equals 240, the Vol. I §IV.H core-support sizing, confirmed on the bond site. It contradicts Sheriff Kunkel's May 21, 2026 statement that “nobody's been talking about 240 beds from the get-go.”

“Estimated tax impact: $100,000 home taxable value — $88 per year / $7.33 per month”

Three problems. First, the number is presented as the tax impact, but it is the output of a 12-year financing scenario that appears in no adopted document. The term will be set after the election, and neither the site nor the fact sheet states any term, rate, or interest total. Second, the number is a ceiling. The Finance Director's stated goal was a figure “I could confidently state regardless of the ultimate financing terms,” computed at zero valuation growth against the county's recent 3.6–4.7% growth, so it is a first-year maximum presented as the impact. Third, the county's legal notice recites the same $88.00 per $100,000 of actual value, the §331.442 basis, for which the county's calculator returns $41.74. Two county publications differ by a factor of 2.1 for the same house. The page's stated basis (taxable value) is the correct one for the $88; the term, rate, and interest behind it are not stated. See the Cost Analysis page for the full chain.

The online tax impact calculator

The embedded calculator applies the 12-year scenario levy rate (0.87998 per $1,000) and the residential rollback (47.4316%), with homestead, senior, and veteran exemptions. Its arithmetic checks. Its result for a $100,000 actual-value home ($41.74) contradicts the county's notice ($88.00).

“The total cost of the project is $94.5 million”

It is the adopted bond cap, which the resolution calls an estimate “not binding on the Board.” It excludes interest ($25.0M–$51.6M depending on a term set after the election), ~$3.08M in documented pre-vote commitments, and any operating pro-forma, which has not been published. As retrieved November 2, 2026, the page states that the total “includes non-construction costs such as furniture, land acquisition, design fees, and other miscellaneous administrative costs,” which implies the ~$2.1M reserve-funded land purchase will be reimbursed from proceeds under the “acquiring land” purpose. No amount and no resolution have been published.

“The jail component accounts for approximately 45% of the building, and the Sheriff's Office accounts for 55%” (under the heading “Cost”); fact sheet pie chart “45% Jail / 55% Sheriff's Office”

The 45% is floor area: 53,730 of 118,500 SF. The Project Cost table on the same page puts the jail at $52,726,145 of $94,500,000, or 55.8% of the dollars. On the website the area share appears under the heading “Cost,” where a reader can take it for a cost share; the cost share runs the other way. In the county's defense, the sentence says “of the building,” and the dollar table is beneath it. The fact sheet labels its pie in square feet and “% of operational space” but gives no dollar split. Sheriff Kunkel's figure, “about 50%” (May 21, 2026), matches neither.

“Estimated total construction cost (excluding equipment) = $77,435,000 … Estimated construction cost per square foot (excluding equipment) = $653”

The division checks: $77,435,000 ÷ 118,500 SF = $653.46. Nothing else can be checked. No buildup, no per-component construction rate, no dollar-year, and no definition of the excluded “equipment” has been published. The rates Shive-Hattery stated at the July 9, 2026 CJCC meeting ($850/SF jail; “just about $600” sheriff's office), applied to the published areas (with the 8,000 SF storage building unpriced), give $79.7M, $2.3M above this figure. The other $17,065,000 of the $94.5M is described only as “furniture, land acquisition, design fees, and other miscellaneous administrative costs.” The figures appeared on the site after this page's August 12 review; the county has not dated them.

“approximately $166 per inmate” (operating cost “approximately $5.5 million dollars per year” ÷ FY25 average daily population 90.14)

The FAQ discloses the method: the 90.14 “includes everyone in our total custody,” including people housed in other counties and on electronic monitoring. The $5.5M runs the building in Iowa City, and roughly a third of the 90.14 are not in it. Housing people out of county is paid separately at $60/day, which the same answer calls “an additional expense.” Dividing in-facility cost by in-facility population (FY25 in-house ADP 56.70) gives about $266/day on the FAQ's $5.5M, or about $315/day on the FY27 in-facility budget. The 90.14 does not match the Sheriff's control sheets, which give 84.08 total in-custody ADP for FY25, and the FAQ names no fiscal year for the $5.5M.

“For FY26, the budgeted amount was $800,000”

The adopted FY26 Sheriff's Office budget worksheet lists $960,000 on the Jail Inmate Housing Expenses line (01-08-1050000-48615), the same figure as every published year since at least FY17. The $800,000 is the FY27 proposed amount (SC349). Either the FAQ has the fiscal year wrong, or the County amended FY26 mid-year without a published document. The same answer puts FY25 out-of-county spending at $434,460; the Sheriff's FY25 control sheets total $440,380.

“In 2025, the jail averaged 20 inmates housed out of county daily… This has cost Johnson County over $1,844,755”

The 20 average is accurate. The dollar figure is a five-year cumulative, and the page states no period. The county's by-year out-of-county cost PDF (posted April 2026) shows the running total rising from $14,556,846.51 at June 2020 to $16,401,601.51 at June 2025, a difference of exactly $1,844,755, so the figure is FY2021 through FY2025. Nothing on the page explains why five years rather than one, three, or ten. The same page also gives a labeled cumulative ($16.6M, 2001–2025). The unlabeled $1,844,755 follows the sentence “In 2025, the jail averaged 20 inmates housed out of county daily,” where a reader can take it as the 2025 cost. The FY25 figure is about $440,000 ($440,380 on the Sheriff's control sheets; $442,380 in the by-year PDF), roughly one quarter of the number printed beside it.

“$16.6M on housing inmates out of county from 2001–2025” (Need, fact sheet) vs. “over $17 million in bed costs” (Home)

Two different cumulative totals for the same thing on the same site. The county's by-year PDF (posted April 2026) gives a running total of $16,641,920.51 through December 2025. The $16.6M is accurate; “over $17 million” overstates it by more than $350,000.

Out-of-county destinations: “Linn, Henry, Washington, Iowa, Jackson, and Muscatine” (Home) vs. “Cedar, Henry, Jackson, Linn, Muscatine, and Washington” (Need)

The two lists disagree (Iowa County vs. Cedar County), and neither matches the payment registers, which show Linn, Washington, Henry, Cedar, and Lee. No FY25–FY26 register extracted shows Iowa, Jackson, or Muscatine County, and Lee County is on neither list.

“The county is currently spending $3.2 million to stabilize the structure and replace the roof and rooftop HVAC system”

The stabilization construction contract is $1,885,400 with Peak Construction Group, a figure the Need page itself cites two sentences before the $3.2M reappears. All four bids came in 43–47% under the $3.23M engineer's estimate. The county presents the superseded estimate as current spending without itemizing the ~$1.3M gap.

“The current average bed cost is $62 per bed per day”

Consistent with contract rates and invoice-level payment data.

Roof replacement “will cost between $427,500 and $712,500” per a 2024 assessment

Matches the 2024 Axiom property condition assessment.

The CJCC is “a 17-person committee that meets monthly… CJCC continues to meet and meetings are open to the public”

The CJCC voted on February 12, 2026 to meet quarterly, citing capacity constraints, and has not met since July 9, 2026. The same paragraph states the committee's mission as creating a plan “to replace” the jail, a mission that presupposes the outcome the committee was advising on.

“An independent public opinion survey” (CSSI)

The survey's information block was written by the client; the instrument was shaped across four subcommittee meetings with no public notices or minutes; the county paid $53,406, billed as “CJCC Jail and Sheriff's Office Facility Evaluation.” The county site does not cite the survey's 74% headline figure.

“August 28, 2025: Johnson County formally asked the City of Iowa City to consider a joint law enforcement facility… This joint facility is no longer being considered.”

Nothing stated is false. Omitted: Iowa City's council voted 4-3 in favor of the partnership on September 16, 2025, and Sheriff Kunkel withdrew his support the next day (“any support I had has ended”). The timeline presents the end of the joint facility as mutual; the record shows the city voted yes and the Sheriff withdrew.

“March 2026: The county entered into a contract with Shive-Hattery for planning and referendum support services”

Accurate. The county's public description of Amendment 3 ($549,000) matches the claims-register memo line (“referendum services,” $270,392.58 paid as of July 2026). Shive-Hattery's invoices (RR-005) show “Amend 3 Referendum Services” is the firm's billing label for the whole $549,000 amendment, billed by percent complete (27% as of May 27, 2026); the invoices do not allocate among the amendment's four parts, so the campaign share of the payments is unstated. The description appears on a website funded from the same amendment's $30,000 Public Awareness Campaign line. Iowa Code §68A.405A governs the use of public funds in ballot campaigns.

“An internal planning committee meets weekly to coordinate updates, planning efforts, and next steps”

Accurate. The body has been called the “Johnson County Sheriff's Office Planning Committee” (July 16), the “Jail Bond Committee” (Finance Director, July 29), and the “Jail Planning Committee” (August 12 agenda). It recommended the CMAR procurement and produced the tax-impact calculation. No public notices, agendas, or minutes exist under any of its names.

“Previous jail bond referendums were in 2012 and 2013… 56% approval in 2012 and 54% approval in 2013”

Both figures are correct. Omitted: the 2000 referendum, in which a standalone jail received 35% yes.

Community sessions: Solon August 18, HHS September 1, North Liberty October 6

Correct as retrieved; all three sessions have now taken place. The Solon session was announced to the July 9 CJCC as August 11 and moved to August 18 without visible correction.

The IWV/Slothower parcel “was selected for its location and is intended to serve as a long-term asset for future County development needs, including a new sheriff's office and jail”

The purchase facts (July 2, 2026, ~35 acres, ~$2.1M) are accurate. The “long-term asset” description understates the executed agreement, which names “a County jail and sheriff's office” as the intended governmental purpose and makes the bond referendum a waivable buyer contingency. The adopted ballot's “acquiring land” purpose permits reimbursing the purchase from bond proceeds.