By C1 Staff
PRYOR, Okla. — County jails in Oklahoma are scrambling for money after the Department of Corrections chose to stop payment for housing federal inmates.
FOX News reports that voters in Mayes County will be asked to approve an 8th of a penny sales tax to make up the $500,000 the jail needs to operate.
After the DOC decided to stop paying counties to house its inmates, all federal inmates were shortly pulled from those facilities three weeks later.
“That was a $507,000 cut,” says Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed. “Oh my gosh, what do we do? Because for the public safety side of it it’s not like you can go cut deputies and just fire and lay people off.”
The facility takes $700,000 to run. County jails aren’t supposed to include things like payments for federal inmates, as the money isn’t guaranteed, but most came to expect and rely on the money regardless. Now financial emergencies have appeared.
“The only thing left to make it up is either a property tax or a sales tax,” says Sheriff Reed.
He’s adamant that voters know the money will only be used to make up for the loss from federal inmates.
“They’ll be no raises. We’re not going to be able to hire more people; that has nothing to do with it. All it is, is we lost half a million, and this is a way to regain that half million. It’s just going to keep us where we’re at. Afloat.”