Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@shawanoleader.com
Shawano County Jail inmates assigned to the Huber Work Release Center might have to pay a little more per day for the privilege of going to work.
The Public Safety Committee discussed increasing the fee from $17.50 per day to $20 on Wednesday, but decided to postpone a decision until January in order to gather more information.
According to Jail Administrator Steve Borroughs, the fee has not changed for five years.
The fee will not require County Board approval. The ordinance on the Huber rates, which took effect in 1995, allows the Public Safety Committee to make the decision.
Borroughs told the committee earlier this week that the fee increase would double the amount of money he needs to increase the wages of some of his jail staff, especially the five that have been hired after Jan. 1, 2012, and have not received a pay increase.
“I understand there’s a wage study coming, but they have still received nothing (since being hired),” Borroughs said.
Also, Borroughs wants to make sure all of his jail sergeants are making the same wage. He said that several of them, including one who was hired in 1994, make less than the sergeants who have been there longer.
“They’ve made their bones. They’ve been on the job long enough,” Borroughs said.
Huber has a capacity of 144 prisoners, but the average daily occupancy is 90, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Borroughs said 75 percent of the inmates at Huber are working. If they are all working the new rate would provide an additional revenue of about $168 per day, or about $61,000 annually.
Only prisoners who are allowed to leave for jobs are charged the daily rate, according to Borroughs. If inmates are housed at Huber because of overflow at the main jail, they are not charged.
“We can make them pay even if they aren’t working, but creating a debtor’s prison is not something I want to do,” Borroughs said. “They have no money to begin with.”
He said the current rate is on the lower end of what other counties around the state are charging.
Supervisor Bert Huntington said he wanted to know specifically what the counties that border Shawano County were charging. He said what Brown and Milwaukee counties charge should not be a factor because they are so much larger.
Borroughs did not have the rates for Oconto, Waupaca, Langlade and Menominee counties but said he would bring them next month.