GREENVILLE Mercer County Prison Board wants formal jail pact

The county is looking at adding a modular housing unit to house certain prisoners.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
MERCER, Pa. -- The Mercer County Prison Board wants a formal contract to house prisoners at the Greenville municipal jail.
The borough lockup has regularly held overflow prisoners from the county jail for short periods but hasn't always billed the county for that service, said James Epstein, county district attorney and prison board chairman.
He said the board voted Monday to authorize county commissioners to enter into a formal agreement with Greenville, agreeing to pay $50 per day for prisoner housing up to a maximum of three days per prisoner.
Epstein said the county has routinely housed around a half-dozen prisoners for short periods in Greenville each week when both the county jail and the Shenango Valley Regional Lock-Up in Farrell are full.
It was an informal arrangement that has been in place for about 10 years, Epstein said, noting that prisoners housed at Greenville were kept there for only a day or two each.
The new rate is $10 a day higher than the borough currently receives from the county, said Thomas Strahler, acting Greenville police chief.
Used to be free
Strahler said the borough didn't charge the county anything for a number of years because the county bought a video monitoring system for the borough jail and the borough housed prisoners for free to pay off that cost.
However, the $40 fee wasn't reinstated for a number of years after the debt was paid, Strahler said, noting that it was just put back into place this year.
In other matters, the board directed Warden Jeff Gill to check with Mercer borough officials to find out if it would be possible to install a modular housing unit adjacent to the county jail to provide housing for work-release inmates who leave the jail in the morning and return at night.
County Commissioner Olivia Lazor, a prison board member, has proposed buying a modular housing unit for about two dozen inmates because of overcrowding at the jail.
Mercer County is spending $1.5 million to rent jail space from other Pennsylvania counties to house the overflow, and Lazor believes that money might be better spent in providing temporary expanded housing in the county.
New jail in the works
The prison board will advertise for bids in January to build a 266-bed, $18 million new jail but completion of that project is a few years away.
The current jail has space for about 120 but has a daily inmate population averaging 170.
Epstein said Cambria County recently bought a modular jail housing unit to expand its capacity, at a cost of $300,000.
Mercer County's discussions are "very preliminary at this point," he said, explaining that the prison board first has to find out if the borough would allow such a structure within the municipal limits and be able to provide water and sewage services.