KALAMAZOO -- Efforts to address the overcrowding issue in the Kalamazoo County Jail have gone on for some time, now, but just recently it's been discussed that the facility's expansion could be covered financially without tapping into extra taxpayer dollars.  Kalamazoo County Board Chair Dave Buskirk says it's clear to County officials that a millage will likely  never be the answer to funding a jail expansion, but Sheriff Richard Fuller has brought to them a plan for a small expansion and rearrangement that may be feasible.

It involves rearranging the prisons structure to provide a better receiving area and to separate ill inmates from others, among other things.  Buskirk says they have saved up enough money to begin a 20-year plan to reorganize the jail and they have at this time no plans to go to taxpayers for any more money.

The current jail's capacity is 327, but they're predicting that the first phase would create space for up to another two-hundred beds.