Despite Schuylkill County’s best efforts, the number of inmates in the county jail last month scraped the ceiling of the state’s 277 cap.

The peak census was 266 in October, Warden Eugene Berdanier said at last week’s prison board meeting.However, that number had dropped as of Wednesday to 256, with 39 inmates being housed out of the county.The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections set the cap in May to relieve overcrowding.The county began to house inmates at jails in Delaware, Centre, Columbia and Berks.Berdanier said negotiations are underway with Snyder, Clinton and Lehigh counties to handle Schuylkill’s overflow.But the diversion program is expensive, costing Schuylkill $60 a day per inmate to house them outside the county.The cost has county officials looking at more cost-efficient, long-term solutions, including a drug court expected to begin early next year, programs to help inmates transition back into the community, and a pre-release center.The jail, across the street from the courthouse in Pottsville, was built in 1912.Its “ideal capacity” is 250, but it routinely houses more than that.Earlier this year, the overflow forced the jail to house as many as three inmates in cells designed to hold two. That’s only allowed by the state in temporary, emergency situations.