Cost of housing Schuylkill inmates still rising

The cost of housing overflow Schuylkill County prison inmates in other counties continues to rise.

As of the end of June, the county paid $608,324.

That’s not counting the transportation and other related costs. An additional $49,556 was pending processing, said Warden Eugene Berdanier.

The figures emerged during a prison board meeting Wednesday.

In May 2016, the state Department of Corrections ordered the county to stop accepting new inmates until it got the population below a 277-inmate cap. Too many inmates were being housed three to a cell, the DOC said.

To comply, Schuylkill began housing overflow inmates at other jails — at a cost of about $65-$70 per inmate per day.

The DOC lifted the restriction three months later, after the county kept the numbers down.

As of Wednesday morning, 85 inmates were at the other jails. Forty-five were in Centre County, 12 in Berks, 10 in Columbia, seven in Lackawanna, and nine in Snyder County.

The population at the aging jail on Sanderson Street in Pottsville stood at 236.

The prison board is planning an intermediate punishment facility as a way to permanently resolve the overcrowding.

The county in October 2017 hired Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, Mechanicsburg, for $38,400 to update its 2008 prison study to determine what the county’s needs will be over the next 20 years to help determine the nature of the facility.

At the request of Prison Board Chairman President Judge William E. Baldwin, the board has also been discussing housing some inmates in the work release area.

There are 44 beds in the area, and only a few are filled.

In other matters, Berdanier reported a new, five-year correctional officers’ union contract is being negotiated. The current pact ends on Dec. 31.

The board also promoted a part-time officer, Kyle Jones, to full-time to replace Andrew Phillips, who resigned on July 8 to take another law enforcement position.