So far this year, Schuylkill County has spent $90,356 to house inmates in other counties to alleviate overcrowding in its 171-year old jail on Sanderson Street in Pottsville.

Last year, the county set aside $932,292 for what it calls “outsourcing” of inmates. This year, the spending plan is $1.5 million.

Schuylkill on Wednesday continued to burn through that budget, approving a two-year contract with Northumberland County to house inmates there for $67 per inmate per day.

The contract runs from Jan. 1, 2022, through Dec. 31, 2024. It may be extended annually for up to three years, with the fee to be negotiated at the end of the initial term.

As of Feb. 16, the jail housed 246 inmates. A total of 43 inmates were sent to out-of-county prisons at a cost of $65-$70 per inmate per day. There were 32 on Centre County, one in Columbia County, and two in Snyder County, according to Warden David Wapinsky’s report.

Keeping a lid on the prison population is an expensive mandate for county taxpayers.

After the state Department of Corrections learned that too many inmates were living three to a cell due to overcrowding, the department ordered the county to stop accepting new inmates if the average daily inmate count topped 277.

To meet that requirement, the county began sending overflow inmates to out-of-county prisons in May 2016.

Since then, county officials have worked to find less-costly solutions.

They included an intermediate punishment facility that would prepare inmates who were close to their release date for life outside by addressing jobs, drug addiction, mental health and other issues.

The county in October 2017 hired Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, Mechanicsburg, for $38,400 to update its 2008 prison study to determine what the needs will be over the next 20 years.

In 2011, the county withdrew plans for a prerelease center when construction bids came in at about $1 million over the averaged $4.2 million budget.