A committee of local officials will meet again a week from today to discuss reforms to ways criminal offenses are handled in Warren County and set a course for a new county jail.

Building and staffing a jail according to results of a 2010 study would force a property tax increase through a millage-rate hike of 3 to 6 mills, according to calculations last week by the county. Supervisors have said specifications for a 350- to 650-bed jail on 20 to 50 acres with 77 employees is more of a “Cadillac Plan” and have looked for ways to scale it down. They have released tax rate hike implications.

The committee of supervisors, judges, clerks and others who work closely with the legal system will meet at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 26, at the courthouse.

District 4 Supervisor Bill Lauderdale, who directed last week’s tax impact statistics be computed and released, said more in-house studying is needed to fend off criticism of the supervisors for the ideal facility’s cost. Taxes on homestead-exempted property valued at $100,000 inside the city would increase about 6 percent under the highest-end models of last year’s study by Colorado-based Voorhis/Robertson Justice Services. Increases were based on a conceptual, $24 million bond issue.

“I think there’s still some confusion on the cost of the jail,” said Lauderdale, who filed qualifying papers Tuesday to run for a sixth, nonconsecutive term. He referred to comments by former mayoral candidate John Shorter at Monday evening’s communitywide program at Vicksburg Auditorium to commemorate the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday that took county officials to task for “ignoring” renovations to the current jail, something consistently panned by supervisors and sheriff’s officials as too costly and unfeasible.

Board President Richard George, while not endorsing every aspect of the 16-month review, termed it “a fine assessment of what we’ll need in the future” and repeated concerns about maintenance costs.

“The bottom fell out of the economy right in the middle of his (Dave Voorhis) work,” George said. “The real burden is the daily operational cost.”