Sheriff Kelly Martinez expected to seek as much as $3 billion from county for critical jail upgrades

Even before she was sworn in as the 31st sheriff of San Diego County, the first woman to hold that job, Kelly A. Martinez knew the work ahead would be arduous.

Martinez stepped in three years ago next month to lead the department she has served since 1985, at a time when it was beset with challenges on many fronts.

At least five deputies had been arrested on accusations of sexual misconduct. Another was facing life in prison for shooting a fleeing mentally ill man in the back.

The Sheriff’s Office also was defending a class-action lawsuit challenging its practices in county jails, while dealing with the fallout of a 2022 state auditor’s report that found San Diego County had the highest rate of in-custody deaths among California’s large counties.

Martinez began tackling the issues one by one, reforming agency practices and making changes to command staff. She settled a major dispute in the class-action case over services for people with disabilities in county jails, promised improvements to medical and mental health services and vowed to be transparent about problems facing her jails.

Under Martinez’s reforms, the number of in-custody deaths dropped from a high of 19 in 2022 to 13 in 2023. Last year, nine people died in custody. The number has climbed slightly higher this year, with the sheriff reporting the 10th fatality of 2025 last month.

But arguably the biggest challenge by far could come Tuesday, when the sheriff will ask the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to embrace the largest single investment in public safety infrastructure in county history.

The Sheriff’s Office is seeking to build a new jail to replace the aging Vista Detention Facility, the main lockup in North County. Built in 1978, it now houses some 650 people at any given time.

Martinez will also ask for funding to upgrade and renovate other county jails to comply with federal disabilities laws and be compatible with current medical and mental health needs.

In all, the requested public investment could amount to billions of dollars.

In a letter to the board, Martinez did not disclose exactly how much money she needs for jail upgrades.

But Cmdr. Chris Lawrence, who oversees county jail facilities for the Sheriff’s Office, told The San Diego Union-Tribune earlier this week, during a tour of the Vista jail, that it could be as much as $3 billion.

“That’s unfortunately kind of the going rate with new construction,” he said.

“We definitely don’t want to see a $3 billion price tag,” he added. “We’re hoping to see vastly less than that, but coast to coast, it’s more expensive to build — in California, New York and all the regulations that go behind it.”

The sheriff’s request does not make recommendations about where the money would come from. But it does note that a consultant hired last year to evaluate how the county could pay for major public safety infrastructure projects — including replacing or renovating the Vista Detention Facility — suggested putting a public safety and infrastructure bond measure on the 2026 ballot.

Annual payments of such a measure would not come cheap. A $3 billion bond would cost taxpayers almost $200 million a year if financed at 5% over three decades. The current Sheriff’s Office budget is $1.3 billion.

“The Sheriff’s Office has invested significant internal resources in recent years to address major maintenance needs within the jail system,” Martinez wrote in her letter to the board. “However, significant additional investment is urgently needed by the County of San Diego in the coming years to replace VDF while simultaneously dedicating the necessary resources to ensure the other six County jails remain operational.”

The request for money for facilities upgrades comes as the Sheriff’s Office faces at least 20 lawsuits filed by families of people who died in custody, most of them over deaths from before Martinez took office.

The Union-Tribune reported last month that the Sheriff’s Office’s annual payments into the county’s public liability fund — the pool of money used to cover claims against the county — climbed more than fivefold over the past 10 years, to almost $50 million in the current budget.

The ongoing class-action lawsuit over jail practices has already cost the county more than $2 million in legal fees and is expected to go to trial early next year over outstanding claims that the Sheriff’s Office is not providing proper treatment to people in jail.

But the spending Martinez is requesting would alleviate a host of issues confronting her — and the county at large — by allowing the sheriff to drastically improve how people in custody are housed and treated.

“County detention facilities were not constructed to accommodate the standards and level of care required for today’s incarcerated population,” Martinez told supervisors in a letter late last week.

“Additionally, many of the necessary infrastructure changes, including those related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, are extensive in scope and costly and time-consuming, requiring relocation of hundreds of people,” she added.

Martinez told supervisors the same thing two years ago, when she unveiled a 10-year, nearly $500 million modernization plan.

The majority of that, some $316 million, was earmarked for the new Vista jail. Upgrades and renovations to other facilities would allow the Sheriff’s Office to provide safe and stable housing for decades to come, she said at the time.

In November 2023, the Board of Supervisors approved $1.5 million in spending to study various capital-improvement scenarios.

In recent months, as consultants and the sheriff evaluated whether to renovate the existing facility or build a new jail from scratch on-site or somewhere else, the estimated costs climbed and the challenges piled up.

The Sheriff’s Office now says a new Vista jail would cost at least $600 million and as much as $1.2 billion, depending on how many beds are included in final plans and on when construction begins.

Infrastructure upgrades at the other county detention facilities — including the Central Jail, which opened in 1998, and George Bailey Detention Facility, which opened in 1993 — could collectively equal or exceed those costs.

The last time the Vista jail underwent major renovations was a decade after it opened. That project cost $30 million, took just over a year and doubled the jail’s size from 246 beds to just over 500 to address severe overcrowding.

Though its exterior still resembles the then-modern complex unveiled in 1989, the infrastructure behind it has been pushed far beyond its intended lifespan, the Sheriff’s Office says. A consultant hired by the office has recommended that the entire jail be replaced.

Outdated electrical systems have forced the closure of housing modules when key components fail. Staff often search eBay for parts to keep old control systems functioning. It’s not uncommon for sewage to seep through the ceiling due to cracks in pipes.

The oldest among San Diego’s seven jails, it reflects how the goals of incarceration have shifted over the last few decades.

The booking area is cramped and offers little privacy for people being asked the in-depth medical questions that have been added to the intake process to flag people who might need additional assessment and monitoring.

Further inside, narrow corridors lead to rooms that have been repurposed for uses that reflect the new priorities. A former medical observation room now houses an enhanced observation unit for people at risk of self-harm. A psychiatrist occupies what used to be the chaplain’s office.

Designed to hold people serving a year or less, the facility now incarcerates people for up to 10 years under a state law that reduced overcrowding in California prisons by keeping lower-level offenders in county custody.

“The layout was designed for what it’s not being used for anymore,” Lawrence said. “It was built for short-term stays. We can’t provide the best level of service with this design.”

Lawrence said the goals of a new jail would include creating a less institutional environment that facilitates rehabilitation, adding more dedicated medical spaces and improving conditions for deputies who may spend 10 or 12 hours a day working inside the jail.

Despite limitations, the Sheriff’s Office has been able to carve out space for two successful rehabilitation programs in the Vista jail — one for military veterans, and one for people struggling with drug addiction.

Lawrence said the goal is to create more room for those kinds of programs.

“With more thoughtfully designed space, potentially the use of the roof in a new design, getting people outdoors more … we’re able to design it in a way that’s more useful,” he said.

Without a major new investment, Lawrence said conditions inside county detention facilities will continue to deteriorate.

“You know the outside is going to be fine, right? It’s a cinderblock-metal facility,” he said. “It’s always going to look similar to the outside. But it’s what’s going on internally that concerns us.”