Big Sandy Regional Detention Center attorney Nelson Sparks said Martin County has paid about half of what it owed to the four county jail today.
Martin Co. Judge/Executive Kelly Callaham, whose father Johnny Callaham was one of the officials who helped create the detension center as judge/executive in the 1980s, has said he would like to get out of the arrrangement and his county has routinely been behind in payments for several years.
Officials with Big Sandy Regional Detention Center said Martin County owed them thousands of dollars. During their last meeting, the board voted to send the county’s attorney a letter asking for the more than $80,000 the county owed them.
“There’s four counties that participate in the jail and they are billed $25 for each day a prisoner from that county is held,” Nelson Sparks, the jail’s attorney said. “The current arrearage was $80,750. before today’s payment”
Sparks said the letter was not a lawsuit.
“The other counties, including Lawrence, are current on their jail billings,” Sparks told TheLevisaLazer.com Friday morning. “Martin County made a payment of $44,200, leaving it with a balance of $36,550 through July.”
Lawrence County officials are also not happy with the regional jail complaining about charges for inmates’ medical bills and for paying more than necessary for inmates held at the center for too many days. Transportation expenses eat up much of the budget for the jail, Judge/Exec. John Osborne has said.
“This jail budget is costing a big percentage of what we have to spend totally, over $400,000 a year, and with times the way they are, we are going to have to do something,” Osborne said in a recent Lawrence Fiscal Court meeting.
(THIS STORY WAS ORIGINALLY ON THE WYMT NEWS SITE. LAZER EDITOR MARK GRAYSON UPDATED IT TODAY)
