The situation at the St. Clair County jail is worse than it seems and not as bad as it looks.

Yup, it's a contradiction, but when it comes to the jail, contradictions abound.

A week or so ago, for example, I was speaking with county Administrator Shaun Groden about design shortcomings with the jail's backup generators. This is the latest in a string of foul-ups and follies that have nudged the facility's final cost toward $50 million, or roughly double the original estimates given to a gullible public. In the course of our conversation, Groden mentioned that between 300 and 400 inmates have received GEDs, or the equivalent of high school diplomas, in the two years since the new jail opened.

"The building has a black eye with the public, but it is working as it was intended to do," he said of the jail. "Not to be p.c. (politically correct), but it's called the Intervention Center, and that's what it is. We've given out more GEDs since it opened than we did in the life of the old jail."

That's no small achievement. The old jail was in use for 51 years.

The flip side begins with continuing reports of shoddy construction and design failures.

I chatted recently with Roy French, a Port Huron native whose architectural firm designed the Times Herald and Anchor Bay High School, among many other buildings. He told me he suspects many of the problems are related to the hiring of a Chicago architectural and engineering firm that declared bankruptcy the same day it delivered its designs.

Yeah, that might do it.

Groden flatly denied one of the more persistent rumors - that the new jail is slowly disappearing.

"It's not sinking," he said. "It really isn't."

A sheriff's deputy told me the jail's prefabricated "pods" were manufactured in the South and shipped to Port Huron Township, where they were reassembled.

"The plumbing inside the pods wasn't properly insulated for Northern winters," he said. "That first winter, pipes burst and water leaked. It was absolutely ludicrous. If a normal person tried to do these sorts of things, they'd have you red-tagged in a heartbeat."

• David Corry offered inside information about the jail. Literally. He's serving a sentence there.

  In the heat of summer, he wrote in a letter, "the north and west walls (of the pod) would expand and contract up to three-fourths of an inch or more. This is noticeable by the gap you find where they have caulked the butt joints of these pre-fab panels they used to build this place."

  Now that winter has arrived, he said, the thermostat has been turned up to counter chill drafts.

  "They have turned the heat up to 85 degrees to try and bring the place to a happy medium," he wrote. "The pod I am in is

  is almost unbearable because it is too warm, though they say other parts of this place are still only 60 degrees."

  He detailed a few more flaws and offered a prediction: "This place was not built to last and will always have many additional costs to it."

• Unauthorized spending and questionable change orders added millions to the cost of the jail, but after a two-year inquiry, the FBI and a federal grand jury declined to pursue a racketeering case.

  Even as the feds backed away, a local labor leader came to the conclusion that state laws were broken. Ken Harris, the president of the St. Clair County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, has been pressing - without success - for a criminal investigation by state authorities.

  "I hope your continuing articles don't get the resistance that I have received," Harris told me in a Nov. 26 letter. "Former and current sheriff department employees are afraid to go on record yet cite numerous anomalies."

  He listed a few of these, including $200,000 to replace fixed windows with crank-open windows (but the cranks were later removed to meet security regulations) and $410,000 to convert "an air-exchange room into a patio-smoke room."

• What really irks the AFL-CIO official is an unauthorized million-dollar contract awarded to a non-existent company. Harris shared documents, including copies of vouchers and checks, which detail the grim story.

  On July 13, 2004, Lee Masters - then the chairman of the county board - signed a $1 million contract with Horizon Environmental Service Co. of suburban Grand Rapids.

  The deal called for Horizon to create 50 acres of wetlands as mitigation for the swamp being filled at the jail site. The company was promised $100,000 at the signing and another $100,000 after 90 days. The remaining $800,000 was to be paid as various benchmarks were met.

  There were any number of problems with the deal. For starters, Horizon was a sham company. There's no record of it being registered with the state. Also, the million-dollar contract was not taken to the full board for its approval.

  Perhaps the only good news is the county lost only $200,000. Horizon couldn't collect the remaining $800,000 because it apparently did no work and thus met none of the benchmarks.

  Horizon's first check for $100,000 was cut on July 15, 2004. There was a line for Troy Feltman, then the county administrator-controller, to sign the voucher. He didn't. Instead, his office manager scrawled a note: "OK per TF & Lee - give check to Jennie - do not mail."

  Three months later, Horizon received another $100,000. Once again, the line reserved for Feltman's signature was left blank. This time, the office manager's note said: "OK per TF - hold for pick-up."

• The guy wearing the white hat in all of this is Groden. Three years ago, he replaced Feltman and uncovered the questionable expenditures.

  He immediately went public with his concerns and issued a written report on Feb. 2, 2005. He also shared his findings with the county prosecutor, Mike Wendling, who in turn asked the FBI to guide the inquiry.

  "My only hope is the results come quickly," Groden said on May 26, 2005 when the FBI took the case. "We need to wrap this up. We need to find out if there was any wrongdoing or not, and move on. The community needs to know what happened."

  It was wishful thinking. More than 30 months later, the community still is awaiting a lucid explanation of what went wrong. It still is trying to move on.

  I put in calls Friday to Bob Cares, an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit, and John Ryan, an FBI agent in Macomb County. Both men are knowledgeable about the case, but they declined interviews, with Cares explaining he cannot divulge information obtained from grand jury proceedings.

  Groden said federal investigators told him they found no criminal wrongdoing. They also suggested the county could sue former officials such as Feltman, now the superintendent of Bath Township near East Lansing.

  "Civil litigation would have been an option," Groden said, "but the investigators concluded there was no personal gain (by Feltman). So what do we go after him for? Making bad decisions?"

  He recommended the county save its money and skip the lawsuits, and the board agreed.

• The final irony of the jail fiasco is how it has hampered Groden, an honest and conscientious administrator, and the current county board led by Wally Evans, one of the most capable local elected officials of his generation.

  They are worthy of our trust, and yet the jail fiasco has eroded trust in county government. The jail also is a huge drain on resources. Staffing it required adding more than 60 people to the payroll, and the millions it has sucked from the county treasury is money that might have been spent on libraries, bridges or a hundred other worthy causes.

  Faith in St. Clair County government cannot be restored until the public gets a full and fair accounting of this fiasco, which is one reason why the AFL-CIO leader is calling for a criminal inquiry.

  Two months ago in a letter to Col. Pete Munoz of the Michigan State Police, Harris wrote: "The commission and administrator at that time should be accountable under Michigan laws and statutes. County taxpayers (such) as myself are responsible for any shortfalls, and yet we broke no laws."

  What is required is the answer to a basic question: Who got our money?