I'm Shocked SHOCKED To Find That Estimates Were Too Low For The New Polk County Jail

I'm in Des Moines today and tomorrow on business and saw this news story on WHO-TV at 10pm. This made me laugh:

Halfway through construction on Polk County's new $64 million jail there's still one nagging question; how will the county come up with an estimated 11 million dollar a year shortfall for the operational costs at the new facility?

County Supervisor E.J. Govenetti said he supported the jail referendum because he thought the facility would be self sufficient, supported by the intake of federal prisoners. Now it seems that revenue won't offset the true cost of day to day operations as many expected.

Polk County Sheriff Dennis Anderson says he did not intentionally mislead or underestimate the true cost of the operations and never said taxpayers would be entirely off the hook for the project. Anderson said, "I was asked this in town meetings. I looked everyone in the eye and said I can't promise you it won't be a tax increase. I said I can promise you if we do nothing there will be."

Right. Dennis Anderson did not intentionally mislead or misunderestimate the true cost of the new jail. Yeah, we believe you. No way would that happen in Polk County!

The news story then went on to talk about how a property tax increase for the jail might affect Project Density, the multi-county metro area tax increase that will go down to major defeat later in 2007. You should have heard them talk. Polk County residents will probably see their property taxes go up another $25 a year on a $100,000 a year house just for the jail budget screwup, but wave the magic Project Density wand and lo and behold your property taxes will go down once they jack the sales tax up to 13% of whatever the hell it will be when all the inbred Democrats get done.