With new state standards for county jails coming in summer 2026, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office is readying new proposals for a major jail overhaul.
The jail, first built in 1984, has beds for 12 male inmates and two female inmates — plus one holding cell and an observation cell. Dan Fellin, detentions division chief for the sheriff’s office, said the facility does not meet the community’s needs and will soon be out of compliance with state standards.
“There are nights where we have those cells full with arrests over the night — granted, most of them leave in a relatively quick fashion, but we don’t have the ability to separate males from females if we have more than two or three arrests,” Fellin said. “We have that ability with housing, but we lose beds that we could be using for other things. We don't have the space that we would like to have.”
Average population has hovered around 15-18 people since reopening beds out of use since the COVID-19 pandemic, Fellin said, maxing out capacity.
The jail cannot accommodate sight and sound separation of inmates by gender, host in-person meetings between attorneys and their clients if holding cells are full or offer adequate space for its programming like yoga, art class, religious services or addiction recovery meetings.
Inmates attend virtual court in the booking area of the jail, as there is no other spot to do so. The outside space also is inadequate, per the incoming state standards.
Fellin said the jail has offered work release to 15 inmates in the past year through a partnership with Garfield County, though they’d like to offer housing in their own jail for inmates with upvalley jobs.
Sheriff’s officials said they feel they’re doing a “disservice” to arresting agencies — Aspen, Basalt and Snowmass police departments — that utilize the jail.
“They remind me that we need more room,” Sheriff Michael Buglione said at a Dec. 17 jail tour with the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners.
The sheriff’s office will present four options for the future of the jail at a scheduled commissioners’ retreat on Feb. 17. Fellin declined to share details on the four options, as they will be presented at the meeting, but they cover a full breadth of options for the jail’s future from same-location renovation to a totally new facility.
The BOCC will have final authority over which option to take, though those options have been designed within the constraints of the incoming standards. Denver-based firm Reilly Johnson Architecture worked on the designs, Fellin said.
“I want to make sure that we have a number of beds to adequately serve our community,” he said. That range is still unclear.
The options are a product of nearly a year’s work with the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, which includes the district attorney, a county commissioner and other local stakeholders. The BOCC approved the CJCC’s formation in September 2021 and charged the new entity with planning the long-term future of the jail.
At a county retreat last February, the sheriff’s office presented possibilities for a standards-compliant facility. The costs ranged from $41 million to $102.5 million.
While renovating the existing facility is by far the cheapest option, Buglione said the 20,000-square-foot jail may not be able to meet the new standards without additional square footage — no matter how it’s reconfigured.
“I don’t even know if it’s possible to do it with the current brick-and-mortar building that’s there now to meet the jail standards,” he said.
Including Fellin, a fully-staffed jail would have 17 positions. As they are understaffed at the moment, Fellin said there are three sergeants and 12 detention deputies on staff. An expanded facility would likely mean more staff, though that exact amount will be decided at a later date.
The jail underwent approximately $800,000 worth of safety-related upgrades in 2023 after the county needed to get inmates back following an agreement with Garfield County that went sour and a temporary relocation to Eagle County Jail.
Those upgrades included new doors with food chutes, door handles, epoxy floors and “anti-ligature” enclosed television and wires. The updates are located in certain parts of the jail, but not throughout the facility.
“We had issues in the past with the light fixtures — specifically when an inmate got upset, they got on the bed and they broke the light fixtures because they weren't detention grade,” Fellin said. “They were all safety improvements aimed at bringing back our people to be as safe as we could while we figured out the long-term plans.”
The new jail standards are a product of the Colorado State Jails Commission, created at the behest of the state legislature, which published its recommendations in November 2023.
The state legislature adopted them via the creation of a legislative oversight committee for Colorado jail standards in June 2024, the first of its kind in the state. Counties have until July 1, 2026, to comply with the standards adopted by the committee.
“There are waiver processes that we can go through [if we’re not in compliance by then],” Fellin said. “But we want to have a plan in place and be working toward that plan prior to then.”
No funding was made available to counties to modify their facilities to meet the standards in the bill, though Fellin said the idea was discussed.
Buglione said he will direct the county grant writer to pursue any available funding to help the county shoulder the cost of the new facility.
The adopted 2025 budget does not include any funding for a jail capital project. Other major capital projects are on the docket for the county in the coming years, including a full runway reconstruction at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport and expansion of the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center working face, though those will both be funded without local taxpayer dollars.
The focus on the jail arose a few years ago when it was deemed unsafe following a safety incident involving an inmate and another incident in which an inmate attacked jail staff. Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario agreed to a temporary deal in 2022 with former sheriff Joe DiSalvo to temporarily house Pitkin County inmates in the facility in Glenwood Springs. Part of the deal included progress on a new facility for Pitkin County.
In the contentious 2022 race for Pitkin County, Buglione staked part of his campaign on not needing a new jail. After Buglione defeated DiSalvo, Vallario terminated the jail agreement the day Buglione was sworn in (Jan. 10, 2023).
He said his viewpoint changed after realizing the extent to which the existing jail did not meet the needs of the staff and inmates, as well as the new state standards — which came about nearly two years into his term.
“If the board recommends something different and we go that way and it costs a lot of money, I will have to tell the community, the citizens of Pitkin County, that this is what's best for the community, best for the community going into the future, best for our staff and best for our inmates,” he said.