News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Fentress County is one of many counties projecting a revenue drop from losing state inmates at its jail.
The county has housed as many as 45 state inmates, however County Executive Jimmy Johnson said they are currently at 26 inmates. Johnson said as court proceedings have opened up, the state is coming and picking up its inmates.
“They weren’t getting to have court as often or as much as they needed to,” Johnson said. “So the prisoners have actually been held in the county facilities. So they’re coming up now and they’re getting to have court.”
During the last Fentress County Budget meeting, it was said there is $700,000 in projected revenue. However, Commissioner Larry Cooper said during that meeting that projection line is unlikely to come in with the current number of state inmates.
Cooper said 26 inmates over a year, will bring in $351,000 for the county.
Johnson said another reason for the increase in TDOC picking up inmates is so the state can can have its facilities around 90 percent capacity.
“All the local jails in the Upper Cumberland are giving up prisoners at this time back to the TDOC,” Johnson said. “Because they have to stay on their percentile of over 90 percent in their facilities. They’re also picking some up in case the influx of local court situations happen and an influx of prisoners come from that. So it won’t be an over crowding issue. So they’re hoping that it will balance itself out.”
Johnson said that each county housing TDOC inmates get revenue from the state. He said that revenue drop will impact the budget until a solution can be found.
“Anytime you take a dime out, that’s a dime shorter than you were,” Johnson said. “So it will have an impact on it but hopefully we can work through it and we’ll get them back in as soon as possible.”
Johnson said that there can be a burden on the county jail for housing some inmates, depending on their medical condition. He said the jail at this time has about 120 to 126 total inmates.
