OTTUMWA, IOWA -- Some unexpected maintenance costs have sent city and county officials searching for tens of thousands of dollars.

The Wapello County Law Enforcement Center has some vital pieces of equipment that are failing.

The city and county came together Thursday night to map out a course of action to solve the problems.

The group decided to spend about $70,000 to fix electrical panels.

"We have three boards located in the jail proper itself and those boards are used to control all of the doors, the lighting and the access in and out of the facilities. What has happened is the technology has changed over the years and the parts are no longer available to keep this system up and running," said Wapello County Sheriff Don Kirkendall.

The law center also has a problem with one of their large boilers or hot water heaters.

According to the sheriff, about six weeks ago a leak in a boiler caused water to flood the facility.

Now the bigger problem could be where the city and county will find the money for the fixes.

Kirkendall told KTVO that it will most likely come from the center's three million dollar maintenance fund.

County officials, however, are worried that fund could be in trouble.

"One of the problems, we used to live off the interest of the three million dollars but because of the way the economy has been, instead of bringing in over $100,000 of interest, we're bringing in in the area of $50,000 in interest and that's not enough to take care of long-term maintenance of a facility this size,” said Wapello County Supervisor Jerry Parker.

The expensive problems were not included in any of the city, county or law center budgets.