He may hold the keys to the steel doors, but Warren County Jailer Stephen Harmon may need a different sort of key to restore the Warren County Regional Jail to fiscal freedom.

Handcuffed by rising costs for personnel and inmate medical care and sentenced to wait for a resolution of a lawsuit involving reimbursement for state inmates, Harmon presented a less-than-rosy proposed budget to Warren Fiscal Court Tuesday.

Harmon’s 2025-26 fiscal year budget, which will be considered for approval along with the entire county government budget later this year, calls for total spending of $12.4 million, up from the current fiscal year’s $11.9 million.

What’s worse, Harmon’s budget projects getting $3,665,332 in assistance from the fiscal court general fund, up from the current year’s $2,992,900.

The culprits are easily identified in a budget that includes an increase of $362,032 in personnel costs, an uptick of $238,000 in inmate medical expenses, and a loss of state inmate revenue of $200,000.

“It’s a difficult budget year for all county jails,” Harmon said after Tuesday’s meeting. “The demands of medical treatment and opioid use disorder is driving medical costs up. People are coming in sicker and more addicted.

“Not being able to predict how many state inmates you’ll have in the building from month to month makes it more difficult. Both state and federal inmates have been down over the last several months.”

That means less revenue for the jail, although Harmon says it is routinely overcrowded.

The overcrowding leads to more stress on Harmon and his staff, which the jailer says justifies the 3% cost-of-living adjustment that represents the largest year-over-year increase in his budget.

“They deserve that and a lot more,” he said. “When we’re fully staffed, we have about 105 employees, so a cost-of-living adjustment is a big-ticket item.”

A smaller budget item, but one that Harmon believes will benefit county residents, is a $100,000 expense to add two road crews involved in clearing debris from roadways.

“This will give us six road crews, which is the most we’ve had in a long time,” Harmon said. “One will be partially reimbursed by a litter abatement grant, and one will work with Operation PRIDE on some of the corridors, keeping them looking nice.”

Making his budget look nice presents a different challenge for Harmon, largely because the loss of state-inmate revenue is out of his control.

He said many county jails are facing a downturn in this revenue source since a 2023 lawsuit brought by the Kentucky Jailers Association against the Kentucky Department of Corrections that claimed the state unfairly burdens counties with the costs of housing, feeding, and providing medical care for state inmates.

“The state is paying $35 per day to hold state inmates when the actual expense is over $50,” Harmon explained. “There has to be some sort of adjustment moving forward.”

A resolution of the lawsuit could make his budget more palatable, Harmon says.

“We’re not a party to the lawsuit, but we’re interested in the outcome,” he said. “We’re looking forward to a final resolution of the case and maybe an agreement where local jails and the Department of Corrections can get on a level playing field.

“We need state inmates, but we need a good working relationship where everyone can mutually benefit. Those (budget) numbers could change, and I hope it’s a positive change.”