Taxpayers in Schuylkill County will continue to pay more than a $1 million a year to house overflow prison inmates in out-of-county jails.

County commissioners on Thursday authorized Financial Director Paul E. Buber to transfer $520,000 from the contingency fund to the prison in part to pay for the housing.

Of that, $445,000 would be used for what county officials call “outsourcing” of excess inmates.

Buber said about $200,000 in cost savings in other areas of the prison’s budget made it necessary to immediately use only $320,000 of that for housing.

“There was money included in the budget for (outsourcing) this year, but the anticipated costs or expense is going to be greater than what was budgeted,” he said.

Another $75,000 of the funds will be used for unanticipated overtime, Buber said.

“Again, money/funds had been budgeted. However, they do anticipate they’re going to need some additional funds to cover overtime between now and the end of the year,” he said.

The money was transferred as a line item adjustment. That means funds are moved from one spending category to another in the prison budget instead of adding extra money to the spending plan.

During the public meeting, Commissioners Gary J. Hess noted the county has spent about $1.8 million so far this year to “outsource” inmates.

The county has for decades been pondering ways to handle overcrowding at the county prison on Sanderson Street in Pottsville.

The county began housing inmates out-of-county in 2016, after the state Department of Corrections found the 171-year old prison was routinely overcrowded, with too many prisoners housed three to a cell instead of the state limit of two.

At the time, the state ordered the county to stop accepting new inmates, and capped the average daily population at 277.

County officials have considered renovating the former Schuylkill Transportation System building in Saint Clair as a prerelease center.

In years past, the county had planned to build a prerelease center near the state prison in Mahanoy, but that option proved too expensive.

The county is currently waiting on the results of a $28,800 update on a 2018 study of options for a pre-release center.

Commissioners in May hired Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, Mechanicsburg, to update the study they did in 2018. The firm also conducted a study, for the same purpose, in 2008.

So far, there’s been no release of information about that update.

Hess said Thursday that continuing to send inmates to other counties is not something the county should do indefinitely. It costs too much, he said, and the “outsourced” inmates are not getting they help they need to address some of the issues that keep them coming back to jail.