Jail outsourcing cost totals over $1.5 million

Hays County spent $83,921 to outsource inmates to eight different counties across Texas last week.

In 2019, the County has spent a total of $1,593,931 on outsourcing since it began reading reports from the Hays County Sheriff’s Office in the last week of January. This number does not include the three weeks that the commissioners court did not meet or did not read outsourcing information.

For the week of July 28- Aug. 3, the average number of outsourced males was 201, with an average of 24 outsourced females. Inmates were outsourced to the following counties: Bastrop, Bell, Blanco, Burnett, Caldwell, Fort Bend, Guadalupe and Walker.

The County does not have any inmates in Mc-Lennan County anymore, said Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler. In addition to the counties to which Hays County currently outsources, the Hays County Commissioners voted Tuesday to approve an interlocal cooperation agreement with Travis County for the outsourcing of inmates to the Travis County Correctional Complex.

“We do not have any [inmates] in McLennan and Waco anymore so we do want to bring them closer for the sake of Courts here,” Cutler said.

The agreement allows Hays County to outsource inmates - when the Hays County Jail experiences overflow - to the Travis County Correctional Complex, which can house more than 2,500 inmates, according to the website of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.