Some projects and changes will soon be underway within the Buchanan County Corrections Division. 

According to Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett, an electronic refitting of the correctional division will start August 1st. 

“We’re going to ask people to be patient with us because we’re going to have to take all the electronics down which means everything is going to go back to hard keys until they get the electronic replaced,” Puett said. 

Puett said the electronics there are about 30-years-old. 

“The things that drive these doors, and it’s really amazing to think about this, but the electronic circuit board that they can’t get parts for, can’t fix is almost the size of a piece of paper and it’s only 128 MB of information,” Puett said. “So we have very antiquated technology that’s been opening and driving the electronics in the doors and all those things in the correctional facility and so now, 30 some years later, we’re going to get all that upgraded.” 

Puett said the project should take approximately three months. Puett said another change will be hours, including visitation hours for the general public. 

“The reason is some internal issues to assist staff but it also is going to be a win-win, it’s going to be a win for staff, it’s going to be a win for the public,” Puett said. “And currently, when people need to bring property in for inmates or they need to have that property released if somebody goes to prison or whatever the case is, they have a really short time on Saturday and they do it once during the week in the evenings.” 

Puett said in an effort to make things easier for people with busy schedules, they’re going to go to a Saturday and Sunday visitation schedule. This will allow an extra day for visitation. 

Puett said they will also require people to call in to schedule when they are going to pick up or drop off property. According to Puett, those changes will be implemented on July 25th.