Grayson County jail expansion to add 166 beds as Cooke County housing deal returns

Grayson County is building room for 166 more inmates at its jail in Sherman, according to contractor SEDALCO. In the meantime, an agreement lets the county ask the Cooke County Jail in Gainesville to hold some of its prisoners when beds there are open.

Cooke County has the last word. The agreement in Grayson County's records ties each request to available space and leaves the decision to accept an inmate with Cooke County. Grayson commissioners renewed the contract 5–0 on Sept. 9, 2025. Another renewal appeared on their Oct. 5 consent agenda. The agenda does not show how commissioners acted on it.

A November 2024 contract amendment set a guaranteed maximum construction price of $30,872,639. Change orders can still move that figure, and a separate $40,000 preconstruction fee comes on top. The price covers the main addition and renovation along with an earlier generator and fire-alarm package. SEDALCO says the new housing mixes shared and isolation cells, and that the job renovates the jail's existing kitchen.

SEDALCO announced the groundbreaking in December 2024, nearly two years ago, but did not say what day work began. The county's Sept. 29 agenda carries a payment request of $899,223.94 for construction done in August. Neither record says how much of the job is finished or when the new cells will open.

Housing inmates elsewhere carries a daily price. In 2023, Capt. Sarah Bigham told commissioners that Cooke County was raising its rate, according to the court's minutes. The same minutes record a higher daily quote from privately run jails in Parker and Haskell counties. The county's adopted fiscal 2026 budget sets aside more for outside housing, and more for jail staff, than the county spent on either in fiscal 2024.

A 2023 county order authorized certificates of obligation for the jail expansion, renovation and equipment. The last of those certificates are scheduled to mature in 2033.

Planning started years before the groundbreaking. A needs-assessment proposal revised in December 2021 asked for three expansion options and a review of the building's systems and kitchen equipment. The construction-manager agreement dates to September 2022.

The jail has run short of room before. The Texas Sunset Commission's 2009 report records a state remedial order for overcrowding in Grayson County. The order was issued in October 2001 and canceled in February 2008. SEDALCO's project description cites the added capacity but does not name crowding relief as a goal.

Sherman's comprehensive plan asks the city to discourage jail and probation uses from staying or growing downtown. It also asks the city to work with the county on other sites.

Census Bureau estimates put Grayson County's population about 13 percent higher in mid-2025 than in 2020. Across the country, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the average daily jail population barely moved from 2023 to 2024 and stayed below its 2014 level.