Carbon County is researching a few changes at the prison.

During the county prison board recently, the board spoke about the jail house management system upgrade proposal, as well as collecting fingerprint fees at the facility.

Warden Timothy Fritz said that the proposal for the management system upgrade includes the addition of a body scanner, as well as tablets for inmate use.

He said that the tablets would be monitored by the prison staff, and noted some benefits, including video visitation, educational components, access to the library system and more.

The board questioned several items in the proposal, specifically the tablets.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that he would like to do a little more research before making any decision.

Sheriff Anthony Harvilla, president of the prison board, questioned how much personnel would be needed to monitor the tablet use, as well as potential hidden costs.

“I like the idea of the body scanner because I think it is a necessary piece of equipment we need,” Harvilla said, noting that he is reluctant to move on this proposal as it stands without the proposed prison study.

Harvilla asked if there was anyway of revisiting this after the study was completed instead of moving on the item now.

Fritz said if the county doesn’t move on this part of the proposal, he at least needs to get the current management system upgraded. The current system cannot be used on the new computers that were purchased for the prison.

The board agreed to hold off on the vote for the proposal and asked if Fritz could ask for a proposal to just upgrade the current management system without the addition of the body scanner and tablets.

No formal action was taken.

With regards to the fingerprinting fees, Fritz asked the board if the prison stop collecting cash. If the fee is added onto court costs, less money will be collected at the jail.

Currently, the prison collects the fingerprinting fee which is $75 if paid before the preliminary hearing. It is dropped off at various offices to be put into the offender’s escrow account, then doled out to pay for the appropriate fines, costs, etc.

Fritz said approximately 25 to 30 percent of offenders pay the fee during the discount period.

County Controller Mark Sverchek said this would reduce cash handling in county offices because that is where abuse (of funds) happened in the past.

A brief discussion on how this fee would be collected led to additional questions.

The request was tabled so it could be reviewed by the county solicitor and will be discussed at September’s meeting.

Other matters

The board also discussed the following items:

• Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said that the water tank and pump house projects will begin in September once a backup water supply is established so no disruption of service to the prison would happen once the project starts. The projects are expected to take approximately 18 days.

• The board also recommending doing something with the well access road because right now the road is very difficult to traverse.

• The prison study evaluation proposal was sent to the county solicitor for review and will be up for vote at the September meeting.