by Adam Shear
MILAM CO. - Ironically just two months after agreeing to house the Coryell Co. inmates, Milam Co. now has their own overflow issues at their jail.
Milam Co. had gone several months with their jail population at around half capacity, so in April county commissioners signed a deal with Coryell Co. to take in excess inmates. The deal gives Milam Co. $43/day for each inmate they housed for Coryell Co.
Milam Co. began housing the excess inmates from Coryell Co. in May.
"When we got started we knew there would be times we'd reach capacity in some way," said Judge Dave Barkemeyer, Milam Co. "We just didn't realize it was going to happen in the first month of our operation."
A recent spike in arrests in Milam Co. put the county jail over capacity. Milam Co. now has too many male inmates and because of the overflow problem the county has been forced to pay Lee Co. to house between five to 15 Milam Co. inmates each day.
"It was kind of an emergency agreement, but of course our sheriff and their sheriff know each other, so there was an awareness that [Lee Co.] had the extra space," said Barkemeyer.
Milam Co. is paying Lee Co. $43 each day per inmate to house their overflowed inmates plus the costs to transport those inmates.
Greg Kouba, who is running for Milam Co. Sheriff, says that he has heard from several Milam Co. citizens that they are not happy that the county is having to transfer their own inmates.
Kouba added that people are upset that the county is paying for transportation, overtime costs that are paid to deputies to transfer the inmates, and paying extra to house those inmates.
"[County officials] need to look at our own county," said Kouba. "You have to have enough space for your own inmates."
Barkemeyer says that since Milam Co. still expects to make between $300,000-$500,000 per year from the deal with Coryell Co., so the county has no problem spending the extra money to make more money in the end.
"We we're just please to have the business from Coryell Co. because there aren't that many excess prisoners out there," said Barkemeyer. "We went months and months with an under utilized jail, but now all of a sudden we're fully utilized, so we're pleased with that."
Barkemeyer also says that Milam Co. is also in the process of looking at ways to possibly rearrange their inmates in the county jail so that they will no longer have to them elsewhere.
The Milam Co. jail holds roughly 160 inmates, but only 112 of those can be males because of the construction of the jail. The county's overflow issues stem from an excess of male prisoners.
