County inmates back in Wayne
By Steve Herring
Published in News on February 24, 2017 9:57 AM
For the first time in recent memory, Wayne County is not housing any of it inmates in other county jails-- a cost that has been moving up on $1 million annually.
It costs the county about $50 per day to house an inmate outside the county, Sheriff Larry Pierce said.
That does not take into account transportation costs, medical bills or the time spent by the transport officer, he said.
"The way I figure it, it costs approximately twice as much to house one outside the county as it does within the county," Pierce said. "We have one designated as a transport officer, but it was taking more than just one to do all of our transports. We hope that will reduce that to a significant degree.
"I think it is not only going to be a savings to the taxpayers, but it is going to be a benefit for our operations as well to be able to have everyone back in the county and not have to do all this transporting and trying to find a jail that house will house your inmate when you do have an overrun."
Wayne County Manager George Wood called the news "huge."
"It is one of the reasons that we made the decision to move forward with the jail in the first place," Wood said. "I think it saves the county money because we built that jail for less than $10 million.
"If you are spending $800,000 a year on prisoners and that is just what we pay those counties. We also have to transport them back and forward. So we've got additional expenditures there. Getting them back home, I think in the long term saves us money. Even when you factor in the operational cost of the jail it is still cheaper."
However, both Wood and Pierce it is too early say exactly what the savings could be.
Also, because of the layout it only takes 28 staff members to run the jail around the clock -- another savings, Wood said.
"So I don't think we are going to spend $800,000 on that (jail operations)," he said.
At time the new Carey A. Winders Detention Center opened two weeks ago 71 inmates were housed outside the county. All of them have been moved back since then, Pierce said.
Also, there is a plan in place that will allow the county to house inmates from other counties.
Pierce said he is unsure how soon that will happen. Repairs must be made to the old jail first, he said.
As of this past Tuesday morning there 81 inmates in the new jail and 231 in the old one.
"About a month ago we had the ribbon cutting for the Carey A. Winders Detention Center, but there were a few tweaks we had to make after that before could formally open it," Pierce told Wayne County commissioners during their Tuesday morning session. "As of two weeks ago we started moving inmates into the detention center, and as of yesterday (Monday) we were able to bring everyone back from out-of-county detention centers and put them in our facilities.
"We have got everyone back now. I will say I cannot take the credit for that. We have a great staff in the detention center under the administration of Maj. (Fane) Greenfield and Capt. (Robert) Thaxton. They and their staff have worked really hard to get everyone back as fast as they have. It was a little sooner than we thought we could do it. So we are pleased to announce that this morning."
The county has been budgeting nearly $900,000 annually to house the inmates outside of the county.
Based on the growth in the jail population over the past two years, Pierce said the cost was projected to reach $1 million.
"It's a significant savings to us," Wood said. "We still have to make some improvement to the current jail so we may still have to farm a few out down the road a little bit once we have everything ready to make those renovations.
"But we are going to try to do that floor by floor so we only have to send out enough to keep one floor empty at all times so that we can get in there and get the work done."
Pierce said materials are being fabricated for the jail repairs and that he is not sure when the work will begin.
He said he will not know if any inmates will have to be moved outside the county until then.
"Until I see at what point they are ready to start working inside the jail, I won't be able to determine that," he said. "There is a possibility we will have to do that, but I going to try to do my best not to farm any more out than I have to."