Video: The Cost of Housing Inmates in one County Jail May Soon be Going Up

CALHOUN COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department wants to increase the bill to house inmates.

It means cities in the county could see a more than ten dollar increase to lock someone up.

Calhoun County Sheriff Greg Pollan says his facility is losing money under the current agreement; meaning the fee isn’t covering what it costs to house an inmate, per day.

Now, he wants a new contract.

Right now, each Calhoun County town pays $25 dollars a day to house inmates at the county jail.

If Sheriff Greg Pollan gets his way, that amount will go up to $37.50 a day.

Vardaman Mayor James Casey says that unexpected expense will hurt his small town’s bottom line.

“I understand that they have the same kind of budget crunches that we do, and you know, the only problem I’ve got is the state only allows us $35 dollars to charge the prisoners and they’re wanting to go above that.”

The jail averages 49 inmates a day; half are county prisoners and half come from area towns.

Pollan says it costs the jail $41.25, a day, to house an inmate.

This means his budget is losing $16 dollars a day.

“I’ve got no problem with somebody trying to make his budget work because that’s what I try to do all the time,” says Bruce Mayor Rudy Pope.

Now, town leaders are struggling to figure out how to pay for the possible price hikes.

“You can’t make up for it because you’ve got a budget and you’ve got it set, you know, and so you just have to dip into reserves, if you have any, and we happen to have a few, but we don’t want to spend it on things like that, you know, tornadoes and stuff.”

Bruce is the largest town in the county and Mayor Pope says this could mean a tax increase for residents.

“The city of Bruce has not raised taxes in twenty-years, can you imagine that? We’re trying to do the right thing, you know. We don’t want to just put a burden on our citizens.”

Despite a looming fee increase, police say criminals will still be put behind bars.

“If they commit the crime, then we will deal with the, you know, the increase however we see fit, you know, but we’re definitely going to keep doing our job,” says Vardaman Police Chief Kenneth Scott.

All police chiefs and mayors have been given a copy of the agreement to look over.