Jail chief urges more jailers, cites rising population and mental-health backlog

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.