The Attala County jail might be operating on borrowed time.
However, talks are expected to resume in the coming weeks to replace the current facility that was built in 1957. The Board of Supervisors took bids for construction of a new jail twice in 2014, but all bids were rejected due to costs above the original estimate. A new jail is expected to cost approximately $5 million.
“We are going to talk with city officials in the coming weeks, but we don’t want to make any hasty decisions and be a burden on the taxpayers,” District 5 Supervisor and Board President Tim Pinkard said. “Our jail is in bad shape and we need to be safe in whatever we do.
“It is possible that the jail could get shut down by the state due to poor conditions. That is why we want to be able to do something. I would think they would give us 30 days to make that call, but right now we are negotiating to send county inmates to surrounding counties.”
Ever-expanding jail requirements from the state and the shutdown of jails in past months have prompted talks to continue. The state recently closed a prison in Walnut Grove.
The current facility houses 16 state inmates as county inmates with a total of 24 beds. The county currently pays approximately $25 per inmate if a county inmate is housed in a surrounding county jail.
“We aren’t getting any money from the state for housing state inmates, but they are used with the inmate work program,” Pinkard said. “If we lose that, we would probably have to hire some people to do some of the work.”
The county currently owns land on West Jefferson Street that it hopes will be the location of a future jail. A jail construction fund was established in 2013.
“We have everybody’s best interest at heart, not only law enforcement but also the citizens of Attala County. “We don’t want to be looking back in three or four years and regret it. Something has got to be done and everybody knows it; we just want to make that something the right thing,” Pinkard added.
