Fiscal court borrowing $153,000 for jail expenses

The Whitley County Fiscal Court voted Tuesday morning to borrow $153,000 to off-set deficits in the jail budget through the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, and to cover $95,000 in outstanding unpaid jail claims.
“At this point and time, I don’t have the money to pay them as presented,” Whitley County Judge-Executive Mike Patrick told the fiscal court.
Several months ago, Patrick projected the jail to have a nearly $500,000 deficit. Based on recent figures on how much revenue the jail expects to make off housing out of county inmates, he is now only projecting that deficit to be about $153,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The total deficit for this year will be approximately $300,000. Part of it was taken care of through a $150,000 loan the fiscal court took out last year.
Whitley County Jailer Jerry Taylor released figures Tuesday morning noting that the detention center billed Knox County $89,760 to house their inmates and pay for medical bills, while McCreary County got a bill for $13,648. Combined, the jail billed other counties $103,409 to house prisoners.
A one point Tuesday morning, in an effort to cut down on jail expenses, Magistrate Wayne Wilson made a motion to discontinue paying overtime to employees at the jail effective immediately. The motion was seconded by Magistrate Nolan Bird.
Patrick noted that he didn’t think overtime could be eliminated completely, but that jail officials could quit scheduling employees to work overtime.
Taylor countered that no overtime work is scheduled, and that he didn’t think it would be legal for the county not to pay overtime to employees.
County Attorney Paul Winchester agreed saying the county could order the jailer not to schedule people to work overtime, but that the county would still have to pay employees for overtime worked.
Wilson, Bird, Patrick and Magistrate Johnny Lawson voted unanimously to withdraw the motion.
Patrick noted that he has been comparing budgets for other county jails to that of Whitley County, and found that it is costing Whitley County roughly $28.44 per day to house each inmate. By comparison, Wayne County is paying $22.22 per day, Clay County$23.10 per day, and Pulaski County $27.72 per day.
Patrick noted that if the Whitley County Jail could cut $5 per day off this cost, then the county would save roughly $384,000 annually.
“There are some areas where I think savings can be made,” Patrick said.
The only specific area Patrick mentioned was in the cost of food.
In Whitley County, it is costing about $4.67 per day to feed each inmate, compared to $2.47 in Wayne County, and $2.10 in Pulaski County.
“Without starving someone to death, I think we can work to bring that down,” Patrick said.
Taylor flatly refused to consider cutting back in the area of food bringing about a lengthy exchange between him and Patrick.
“I can assure you that won’t happen,” Taylor told Patrick. “They are not feeding those inmates on $2 and something day. You know that, and I know too.”
“I think that they would differ on that Mr. Taylor,” Patrick responded.
When asked by Taylor if he thought he could feed inmates at a rate of $2 per day, Patrick admitted he didn’t think he could, but said he thought he could for nearly $3 per day.
“Can you fix anything cheaper than soup beans, or greens and cornbread that they make themselves, and peaches for their desserts? That’s what we had yesterday,” Taylor said adding he didn’t know how much the meal costs. “As I told this court before, I’m not going to starve anybody to death. Those other counties can do what they want to.”
Patrick said he doesn’t think other counties feel they are starving anyone to death.
“They are not feeding them. I can assure you of that. That is why nobody wants to go to them,” Taylor added. “I want to know why all of the sudden why you are concentrating solely on the jail.”
He questioned why the county hasn’t made other cutbacks in the road department for instance, which Patrick responded could be coming.
Taylor added that the jail doesn’t have any dish cleaning liquids or cleaning supplies because the bills haven’t been paid, and that filters at the jail haven’t been changed because of this too.
“You have a new jail up there that is being treated like the old jail,” Taylor noted.