WNEG-TV

CLEVELAND - White County officials are trying to solve the overcrowding problem at their jail. Commissioner Joe Campbell tells WNEG's Tracy Armbruster that it's not only inconvenient, it's also expensive. "We have the capacity for 64 beds. And, we're boarding about 50 prisoners in other counties. It costs us $1015 each prisoner a month," explains Commissioner Campbell.

Commissioner Campbell says the proposed $9 million new facility will have enough room for 166 inmates, with the potential of 30 more cells added on should the county become overcrowded again. Also, the plan doesn't call for any staff increases.

"Electronic monitoring that you have now, you could have one person looking after a lot more people now than you used to in the past. We won't have to hire any more people at all to run our jail," continues Commissioner Campbell. It will be paid for with SPLOST dollars.

Another issue that the Board discussed was making a changes to its county ordinances to monitor the sewage systems. "We've had a lot of complaints from neighbors about the smells and ordors at LHR Farms. We've upgrades our ordinances where it gives us more power to investigate them to make sure they're not doing anything harmful to the community," adds Commissioner Campbell.

Commissioner Campbell couldn't go into the specifics because the county has a lawsuit with LHR Farms that is still pending in federal court.