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WALKER - Jail Administrator Joel Norenberg reported Tuesday the number of Cass County jail inmates has increased.

The number of female prisoners has risen to the point the county is having trouble finding available jail cells to board them, he added. Male and female prisoners must be held in separate housing areas of a jail under state regulations.

Currently, Norenberg said, Cass has eight women held in a separate pod of its jail in Walker. Another eight are held at Crow Wing County Jail. Four more are being boarded at Hubbard County Jail.

Cass had an average daily jail population in 2011 of 53 male and female inmates per day, with 15 of those held in Walker and 44 at Brainerd. The number peak that year hit 64.

In 2013 and 2014, Cass's average daily jail population rose both years by nearly 20 to 71 inmates, with 21 or 22 of those in Walker and 49 or 50 of those held at Crow Wing County and Hubbard County jails. The peak daily number each of those years hit 83 and 84.

Cass has boarded prisoners under contract with Crow Wing County since 2007 when that county's new facility opened with a wing Cass County paid about $2 million to have added to the facility for Cass's use.

Cass's contract boarding rate there has increased from about $37 per inmate per day to $49.41 per day in 2015. For any prisoners beyond the guaranteed 40-prisoner contract, Cass pays Crow Wing $44 per inmate per day this year.

The boarding rate at Hubbard County has risen from $42 to $46 per inmate per day in 2013 to $55 per day in 2015. Further raising the costs at Hubbard is the fact that county now charges for two days when the inmate is booked into the jail on one date (evening before midnight) and released the next date (the next morning).

Chief Financial Officer Larry Wolfe told the county board Tuesday the county has been using the most cost effective system by boarding prisoners outside the county, because Cass's jail at Walker is older and less efficient that Crow Wing and Hubbard's newer jails.

Wolfe reported when personnel, operating, food, building repairs and maintenance and inmate medical costs are added, it cost $199 per day to house an inmate in Cass County Jail in 2013 and $189.98 per day in 2014. The average total inmate population there ran about 22 a day those years.

The same operating costs to operate Crow Wing County Jail ran $94.73 in 2013 and $93.61 in 2014, Wolfe said. Average total jail population there was 172 a day, counting Cass, Crow Wing and any other boarded prisoners.

If Cass adds the operating costs for all its prisoners housed in Cass and Crow Wing Jails and boarded at other facilities, Wolfe said the daily average runs $89.60. Total daily inmates averaged 71. This includes transportation costs to take prisoners to other jails.

So, while Cass has state approved capacity to house more inmates at the jail in Walker than it has been doing, Wolfe said it is more cost effective to continue boarding as many prisoners outside the county as there are available beds.

Administrator Robert Yochum reported that because a high percentage of inmates held are pre-trial inmates, the county and judges have been looking the possibility of a pretrial release program to hold down inmate populations.

Chad Emery, who manages the sheriff's office sentence to serve program, reported 102 of 103 prisoners sentenced to that program successfully completed their sentences in 2014.

They worked off 230 inmate days they otherwise would have spent in jail, he reported. They also worked off $13,321 in fines.

The sentence-to-serve participants completed 5,403 hours of work for the county, 230 hours for Minnesota DNR, 791 hours for cities, 80 hours for townships, 20 hours for other state agencies and 818 hours for non-profit agencies, Emery said.

Central Services Director Tim Richardson said the work the sentence-to-serve crew did for the county saved Cass at least 20 to 30 percent of what it would have cost the county to hire a contractor to do similar work.

Reno Wells, health, human and veterans services director, said the crew's work was excellent and fast. He said the crew did demolition and some re-installation work in his staff work area for remodeling cubicle spaces.

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