Belknap County superintendent warns jail population strain, details power outage and repairs

Belknap County Superintendent Weatherbe told the county commissioners that the jail is experiencing higher-than-normal population levels, expanded medical and behavioral-health needs, and staffing pressures that are pushing overtime costs higher.

"As of 5/27, we had 80 inmates in house, 77 out," Weatherbe said, later adding that "Saturday we jumped up to 86," and that the facility’s average daily population this year has been about 79. She attributed longer pre-trial stays in part to changes in case processing, saying some people have been held for extended periods while awaiting adjudication.

Weatherbe provided program and clinical detail: the jail is using tablets to expand OSHA and ServSafe trainings; a voluntary substance-abuse program has 16 participants; the jail’s medication-assisted-treatment program has enrolled 141 people; nurses and providers delivered hundreds of clinical encounters this year and mental-health visits totaled 580, with 34 suicide-watch cases. She said chronic-care and behavioral-health needs are increasing and that those trends affect staffing and medical costs.

Staffing pressures are acute, Weatherbe said. The department has two vacant correction-officer positions with three interviews scheduled, two officers on extended military leave (about 400 days), and one officer on paid administrative leave. "Our overtime line is projected to go over budget," she said, and the DSC budget for 2026 was reported as about 38% spent of a $6.9 million total (the packet listed 2,665,000 spent to date).

Weatherbe also described a power outage over Memorial Day weekend that affected essential jail systems. "All three emergency generators did automatically initiate," she said, but one generator overheated after an exhaust-louver switch had been left in manual mode during recent maintenance. The overheating left the facility with intermittent cameras, doors and some lighting outages until county maintenance and utility crews intervened.

County staff and the sheriff’s office responded, Weatherbe said, and Eversource repaired the damaged line and later confirmed the splice they performed was intended as a permanent fix and that no new utility pole would be required. The county conducted preventive maintenance on generators after the incident and updated shift-round checklists so staff now verify louvers and know how to manually open them when overheating occurs.

Weatherbe flagged other operational items tied to the population increase: because the jail’s average daily population exceeded 70, the Department of Corrections is incurring a negotiated medical charge of $267 per inmate under an existing contract; sentence numbers remain low so electronic monitoring remains limited to sentenced inmates who satisfy strict criteria (30 days in custody and 30 incident-free days, among other conditions).

She said the county is pursuing additional accreditation steps (PRIA) and continuing scenario-based training that includes Axon suit simulations, Gracie defensive tactics and "verbal judo" de-escalation work. Weatherbe said she was recently selected to represent the superintendent on the state opioid abatement commission.

Next steps: commissioners were told Eversource sees no outstanding utility work and county staff have implemented new generator-check procedures; Weatherbe said the county will monitor overtime projections and staffing as the concert and bike week season approaches.