MOUNT VERNON — Knox County Sheriff David Barber met with the Knox County Board of Commissioners on Monday afternoon to discuss his proposed 2011 budget.
For many of the budgetary items, the sheriff’s office’s budget for 2011 held the line or even decreased compared to 2010. The budget consists of the jail budget and the administrative budget. Certain items like equipment and training either stayed the same or decreased slightly.
Other items such as salaries and benefits, in most cases, were mandated to go up in 2011 because of union contracts.
With salaries going up, other costs such as Public Employee Retirement, workers’ compensation and Medicare also go up, Barber explained.
Barber proposed the cost of inmate care should rise from $227,860 to $244,285. Barber explained this increase would be because the jail has signed a contract to house federal prisoners in 2011.
“We have asked for an increase in that simply because we anticipate an increase in the jail population because we have executed a contract with the United States Marshal Service to house federal prisoners,” Barber said. “We anticipate a population that we believe will run about 80 to 85 prisoners a day.”
Capt. David Shaffer said the average daily jail population is around 45. The Knox County jail has 100 beds but Shaffer said having them all filled is too much to handle.
