Schuylkill County has added an additional out-of-county prison to house overflow inmates.

Commissioners on Wednesday authorized an inmate housing agreement with Mifflin County prison to house the inmates for $68.50 per inmate per day.

The contract runs from Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2018.

Schuylkill inmates are also being held in Centre, Columbia, Delaware and Berks counties.

The anticipated cost of housing overflow Schuylkill County prison inmates in other jails is expected to cost at least $1.2 million a year.

The county started shipping overflow inmates out to other jails after the state Department of Corrections in May 2016 ordered it to stop accepting new inmates until it got the population below a daily average of 277.

The inmate population as of Thursday morning is 274.

The DOC lifted the restriction three months later, after the county kept the numbers down by housing inmates at other counties’ prisons.

There are also transportation and overtime costs. The money comes from the county’s general fund.

In November, 94 inmates were transferred to other facilities. The average cost that month was $83,477.

Commissioners’ Chairman George F. Halcovage Jr. said the county is doing all it can to keep the inmate population under a daily average of 277.

Offenders are placed on electronic monitoring or on probation when they meet certain criteria. The county last January began a drug court to steer offenders away from prison.

Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, Mechanicsburg, is being paid $38,400 to update its 2008 prison study to determine what the county will need over the next 20 years.