The Brown County Jail has been a source of debate over the past several months, as Brown County Sheriff Dwayne Wenninger announced at that time the Sheriff’s Office would have to reduce the number of inmates from 65 to 35, with 30 male inmates and five female. Wenninger said overcrowding is not an issue in the jail, and that the Sheriff Office had to cut their corrections officers in order to stay within budget while keeping deputies on the road.

At full capacity, the jail can handle 55 males and eight females at any given point, although the numbers can be temporarily increased in the event of an emergency. However, Wenninger said the Ohio Revised Code mandates that each jail has to have a certain number of correction officers per inmates. The jail currently has three corrections officers on duty per shift, and Wenninger said that in order for the jail to run at full capacity they would need to have four officers on duty per shift.

Wenninger said he has met with the Brown County Commissioners several times about the issue in the past three months.

“I have mandates by the Ohio revised code that I have to follow,” Wenninger said. “Our daily average in 2008 is roughly 55 inmates… I explained to them (the commissioners) that I have to operate first by safety and second by law, and unfortunately if my funding wasn’t kept up that I would have to cut the amount of jail down to 35 inmates to be able to house the, feed them, and take care of them.

At a meeting in January 2009, Wenninger said he told the commissioners he would need roughly $133,000 to hire two new corrections officers and to purchase additional medical and food supplies to open the jail back open to full capacity.

According to Wenninger, the Sheriff’s office had approximately $1,465,354 to spend on salaries at the department in 2001, and has around $1,436,000 to spend on salaries in 2009. Wages in the department have continued to increase due to state mandates and contractual obligations. Additionally, the Sheriff’s Office had $150,000 to spend on supplies in 2001, and $145,000 to spend in 2009. Wenninger said that the recent economic downturn and increased prices on supplies has made balancing the budget very difficult.

“This is not a space issue, everyone keeps saying it’s a space issue with the jail, it’s a funding issue,” Wenninger said. “Unfortunately we’ve been cut drastically back over the past eight years. We’re operating with less money today than we were eight years ago as far as supplies and the amount of staff and salaries, and I don’t know anyone who can operate on their household budget eight years ago on today. I think this office is going an excellent job to be able to keep funding tight.”

Wenninger said the Sheriff’s Office has been doing the best they can to keep costs down in the jail, and that inmate meals cost just over a dollar. The jail has also cut junk foods and sodas from the menu to help save costs.

“It’s my duty by law that I can only operate with what I have and I have to operate by the Ohio Revised Code,” Wenninger said. “If not, I put the county at a liability issue and I put myself and the Chief Deputy (John Schadle), we’re open to civil liability and that’s a definite ‘no-no’.”

Still, Wenninger said that everyone who is served a warrant will go to jail. Additional prisoners are being taken to the Butler County Jail. Wenninger said that at any given time Brown County has 12 to 20 prisoners in the Butler County’s jail facility. Unfortunately, keeping prisoners at an out of county jail costs additional money. Wenninger said the cost to keep prisoners in Butler County is approximately $70 per inmate, and the county has already spent around $65,000 in the last three months.

“I understand the county is tight, and money is real tight right now but we figure peace, property and safety comes first in Brown County in my opinion.”

Wenninger said he would much rather see the Brown County Jail return to maximum capacity, but that he would need additional funding to do so. The money the jail could get from housing other prisoners would filter back into the county’s general fund, and Wenninger said the money is not necessarily allocated back into the Sheriff’s Office budget.

“I would really like to see that money stay here, and I really thank (Butler County) Sheriff Jones for opening up the space to keep these individuals, because we desperately need the space to keep them. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. We have common pleas court issuing a valid warrant and we must keep them,” Wenninger said. “I don’t have the authority to release them but I do have the authority to find proper space for these individuals, and unfortunately it costs the county money. But I would much rather see our jail at full staff and to be able to work at full capacity because I do have one whole wing that is just shut down.”

The Sheriff’s Office also tried shifting people around in order to keep the jail open full time, but Chief Deputy John Schadle said the office has 13 road deputies less than it had in 2001, meaning that there are only two officers covering the county at any given time. Schadle said the Sheriff’s Office tried to keep the jail open to full capacity in Spring 2008, but they got in trouble with the Ohio Department of Corrections.

“Last year, I’m going to have to estimate April or May, at the request of the villages and the commissioners we agreed to bite the bullet and increase the jail population up to 50 or 55 inmates,” Schadle said. “Well, we did that and when they did the state inspection last Fall, that lady spent about a half hour in my office reading me the Riot Act. She was extremely pleased, she thought, that for a small jail our training regiment for our employees was great, cleanliness, safety issues, with the exception of staffing. She said you’re going to get your butt handed to you in a lawsuit if someone gets hurt back there and they can directly relate that to being understaffed.”

“It’s not a position we want to be in,” Schadle said.

Wenninger said that $70,000 had been allocated in the county budget for a new jail fund, but that a new facility would not solve the county’s jail problem. The amount of corrections officers required at each individual jail has increased in the Ohio Revised Code, and while the Brown County Jail is grandfathered in with the old rules, a new jail facility may require as many as six to eight corrections officers per shift.

Until a solution can be reached to get the jail operating at full capacity, the 32 beds in the jail’s north wing remain vacant.