RUSSELLVILLE – Logan Fiscal Court heard concerns from Jailer Phil Gregory about jail staffing and inmate debt, though the legislative body did not act on his requests.

First, Gregory expressed interest in fiscal court budgeting enough money for the Logan County Detention Center to hire four additional deputy jailers and one additional person to work with the office staff.

With 21 full-time deputies working now, the jail typically only has four people “on the floor” at any given time, he said.

“You’ve got four people trying to manage 222 people a day, as much as 258 or 281. You can do the numbers on that,” he said.

Earlier in the meeting, Gregory said the current number of inmates in the Logan County Jail as of Tuesday morning was 222.

While state statute requires a county jail to have four deputies to control a jail population of 250, Gregory said he still wants to have more deputies partly due to safety concerns, but he also wants to ensure that when employees take off, the employees that work in their stead aren’t “burned out.”

“The most concerning thing to me is the burnout factor,” he said. “People are working more and more and getting burned out.”

District 3 Magistrate Barry Joe Wright suggested cutting down the number of state inmates the jail holds, which, on Tuesday morning, was 148, to help with the deputy-to-inmate ratio.

“Cut back on the state inmates, it might help your problem a little bit,” he said.

In response, Gregory said the labor state inmates provide, particularly mowing services, is a net benefit to the county.

“That’s a huge benefit to this community and for him to say that, I don’t know where that was coming from,” Gregory said after the meeting.

Later in the meeting, Gregory expressed interest in implementing a lodging fee for inmates and contracting with a debt collection agency to gather fees.

Gregory said the jail currently implements a $50 booking fee for inmates and is interested in establishing a per-day lodging fee as well.

“You can go as far as per-day room and board. The maximum that you can go (by) statute is $50,” he said.

Gregory said he wants to implement a per-day “room and board” fee to recoup some of the cost of housing inmates.

“They have to pay restitution and court costs. I think it’s only fair that they pay something here,” he said.

Gregory also said he wanted to partner with an outside debt collection agency to gather debts owed.

Former inmates aren’t always able to pay their fees when they are tracked down, making attempts to find some inmates a waste of time and energy for jail staff.

“Some of these folks, you’d just be wasting your time and energy trying to find them. They ain’t got nothing,” he said.

Having an independent firm find people and collect their debts, would be more efficient, Gregory said.

“You might not collect it but in some cases you will and every little bit is worth it because it’s a huge burden on the taxpayers of Logan County,” he said.

Gregory specifically mentioned the firm PayMyJailer but said he’d be willing to look at others.

Amid concerns that partnering with a debt collection agency could have a negative impact on the credit scores of former inmates unable to make payments, the fiscal court voted to table the discussion on potentially partnering with a debt collection firm.