The study to establish a minimum-security prison in Schuylkill County continues.

Several ideas have been suggested including a pre-release center for inmates or a renovation of the Schuylkill Transportation System building in Saint Clair.

Wednesday morning, the Schuylkill County Commissioners voted to extend a contract with Crabtree, Rohrbach and Associates in Mechanicsburg – the firm doing the feasibility study for the proposed facility – to July 31 of this year. The original contract ran out March 31. The firm was hired to update the 2018 feasibility study at a cost of $28,000.

Commissioner Chairman Larry Padora said he’s been trying to organize a meeting with stakeholders in the effort to establish the facility. A new facility has been needed for years to overcome a surplus of prisoners at the county prison. The surplus has caused the commissioners to outsource housing of prisoners to other county facilities at a great cost to the county.

The county spent about $1.8 million to house inmates in other facilities in 2023 as of November. The county estimates that outsourcing housing costs $70 per inmate per day. In September 2023, there were 59 inmates being housed in other counties.

“I’ve been trying to get a meeting with everybody to bring me up to speed on this,” said Padora, who took his seat in January.

The latest estimate on the facility is $25 million for the proposed dormitory-like facility.

“It’s not a new prison,” Padora said, “And yes, I think $25 million is a ridiculous figure.”

Commissioner Gary Hess said he’s been working on getting this facility for the entire 12 years he has been a commissioner.

“We’ve been trying to get a meeting with (Schuylkill County) Judge Russell, the Probation Department, the warden, the commissioners and administration,” Hess said, “We’ve been looking at the STS building, or looking at building a facility from the ground up. The feasibility study going on now will determine not only building costs, but operating costs to staff it. I’ve been pushing for this for 12 years, because our recidivism rate is 85%. In this facility, we will have room for treatment, so it will help save money.”

The problem with overcrowding peaked in 2016 when the state Department of Corrections determined that the prison was routinely overcrowded with three inmates per cell instead of the state limit of two. The state capped the average daily population at 277, and ordered the prison to stop accepting new inmates.

Commissioner Barron “Boots” Hetherington said he’s been working on the project for his four years as a commissioner.

“A dormitory sounds good, but does it meet our needs,” Hetherington asked. “It’s a complicated, interactive process. The facility has to meet our needs, without breaking the bank.”