Bexar County has sent more than 100 inmates to be housed in two nearby county jails after the inmate population reached historic highs this summer, according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.
The jail was dangerously close to being above capacity last month, leading to a spate of transfers starting in mid-June.
Officials are close to formalizing contracts with Burnet and Kerr counties, where the inmates were sent, that would solidify the terms of Bexar County’s current informal agreement with them, Sheriff Javier Salazar told reporters Tuesday.
On average, roughly 120-150 Bexar County inmates are now located elsewhere, and most are in Burnet County.
“I think we’ll have contracts hammered out here in the next couple of weeks,” Salazar said. “Right now, we’re operating on a good-faith effort.”
The move comes as Bexar County leaders are desperate to lighten the load on the county’s adult detention center, where one inmate died and another was found unconscious last month.
On June 10, the Bexar County jail population reached 5,024 — just 51 away from reaching its full capacity of 5,075. Once that threshold is reached, the jail would no longer comply with standards set by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.
This overflow mechanism for larger jails is common across the state, but it’s the first time Bexar County has used it since 2016, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Burnet County is northwest of Austin and Kerr County, which includes Kerrville, is northwest of San Antonio.
Arrests and jail populations typically increase during the summertime, but Salazar said both the baseline jail population and the summer swells have grown year over year. Last year, the monthly average population didn’t reach above 4,700. In June, the average was 4,919.
“Realistically, I think this is the new normal,” Salazar said. “I think we need to be preparing for [inmate transfers] on a constant basis.”
Only so-called “paper ready” inmates — those who have already been convicted of a criminal offense and are waiting for the state to pick them up to take them to prison —will be sent to Kerr and Burnet facilities, he said. People who may be waiting to get bailed out or have active court cases do not qualify.
Though it was the second time the Bexar County Commissioners Court considered the issue, commissioners didn’t vote Tuesday to finalize the interlocal cooperation agreements, which set the rules for such transfers. The court tabled the issue last month and again Tuesday after a lengthy closed-door session with county attorneys and Salazar.
The bulk of negotiations are done, Salazar said, but “we’re hashing out the legal part of the contract.” Leaders of the two receiving counties must also approve the deal.
A contract would also protect Bexar County from having to remove its inmates last-minute from Burnet and Kerr if those counties got a better offer, Salazar said. “That would absolutely put us into dire straits” and above capacity.
In the meantime, Bexar County is racking up tabs with Burnet and Kerr counties, which are slated to charge $80 and $65 per day per inmate, respectively. Using those figures, Bexar County owes Burnet County $163,840 and Kerr County $54,210 for inmates housed from June 13 to July 2.
Under the proposal, Burnet County would house a maximum of 120 Bexar County inmates. That two-month contract could cost up to $576,000 — or $9,600 per day, according to a Bexar County document outlining the deals. The Kerr County contract could cost up to $273,000 — or $4,550 per day — if Bexar County houses a maximum of 70 inmates there.
Salazar doesn’t expect that Bexar County will need to use those maximums but said this practice will likely be common until the jail adds more capacity.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever get to the point where we’ll get a new jail,” Salazar said, noting the hefty price tag of such an endeavor — but an additional tower may be needed in a few years.
“I’m more in favor of making better use of the space that we have,” he said, noting that there are typically about 300 inmates awaiting transfer to prison in the Bexar County jail.
The Burnet and Kerr county contracts come as some major metropolitan counties have been in a standoff with the state, which is responsible for taking convicted inmates from county jails to state-run facilities within 45 days.
The state is also responsible for taking inmates who’ve been deemed by a judge mentally incompetent to stand trial and provide treatment at a state hospital until competency is restored.
Last year, Bexar County considered teaming up with Dallas County to pressure the state to take action those inmates, but county leaders ultimately declined to join the lawsuit.
But the process has slowed due to staffing shortages at the state hospitals, which caused the state to take some mental health beds offline even as inmates who need those services were left waiting in the jail for months and even years.
Mentally ill inmates require far more care than traditional ones, Salazar says, placing an even higher burden on a jail staff that’s already regularly required to work substantial overtime.
Bexar County is slowly closing the gap on overtime at the jail. Though the Commissioners Court approved $1.7 million to cover mandatory overtime, that is in line with what was budgeted for the year.
The county approved hiring and retention incentives, including higher wages for most jailors, last year. The Sheriff’s Office estimates that the average number of staff vacancies at the jail will decrease to fewer than 300 by the end of this year.
The jail needs “more bodies in blue in the building, which we’re doing,” Salazar said. “Fewer bodies in orange would be great as well but … that’s not necessarily up to us.”
Reporter Andrea Drusch contributed to this article.
