Wichita County Commissioners Court on Sept. 19 reviewed jail maintenance issues, recent inmate transfers and staffing plans intended to reduce overtime costs. The sheriff reported building problems, detailed recent transfers to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and outlined a wave of new hires scheduled to start in October.

The sheriff told commissioners, "There's a roof leak. There's a leak right now. There's 2 lights out of the building. The drivers for those lights have been replaced. There was a 113 work orders over the last 2 weeks completed, and we did get the garage door downstairs fixed." The court also discussed equipment inventories the sheriff said had been distributed to staff and the plan to pull county vans back into service for unloading.

The update matters because county officials said staffing and inmate movements are driving large portions of the jail's overtime. The sheriff said 13 open positions correspond to the county having issued 13 job offers, with a tentative start date of Oct. 6. "Those 13 positions equaled at 48 hours a week, 1248 hours of overtime to replace them. And then at 874 hours of vacation or sick. So 2122 hours of our overtime in the jail was open positions or sick or vacation. So left about 500 hours of actual overtime," the sheriff said.

Commissioners and staff also discussed inmate population. The sheriff said the county "came and got almost 30 of theirs" from Collin County and that the jail has continued to transfer inmates to TDCJ, with "a little over 40" sent over the previous two weeks. The sheriff added, "we're still running at 5 ninety's every day," referring to daily population; the exact numeric phrase was used in the meeting.

Court members asked about the State Hospital wait list for detainees needing psychiatric evaluation and treatment; the sheriff said he did not know the current wait list but offered to find out and send an email. On staffing timeline and certification, the sheriff said, "In November, however, we are gonna do gel school. So we have to have to get those through. They have to have their license within that 1 year date. But I think we're good till probably March or April after that." The start date for the new hires remained Oct. 6 as reported.

No formal motions or votes were taken on the jail items during the session. Commissioners instructed staff to follow up on the State Hospital wait list and to continue work on maintenance work orders and equipment inventories.

County officials said they will monitor whether the incoming hires and reduced out-of-county detainees lower daily overtime; commissioners did not set further deadlines during the meeting.