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Jail chief urges more jailers, cites rising population and mental-health backlog
Summary
The jail chief told commissioners the facility's population has grown (the chief and others referenced 970 total with 713 county inmates), overtime costs were running high, and recommended six jailer additions and a part-time mental-health nurse practitioner to reduce backlog and mandatory overtime.
The jail chief reported that the jail population has increased substantially and that county inmates alone numbered in the 700s on the prior day. "713 of them are county inmates," he said, citing recent counts and noting the facility's practical capacity varies by classification. He told the court mandatory overtime has led to burnout and that the office was spending roughly "$90 to $110,000 every paycheck in overtime." The chief asked for six additional jailer positions as a partial way to reduce mandatory overtime.
The chief also outlined medical and mental-health staffing proposals. He described a two- to three-month backlog for visits with the contracted psychiatric physician (Dr. Swysgood) and urged the court to consider funding a part-time mental-health nurse practitioner to shorten wait times for assessment and prescribing. The judge and commissioners discussed options to partially offset costs with savings, commissary funds, or by using part-time staff instead of full positions.
