Yazoo County Sheriff Jeremy McCoy asked county leaders to better explain the extreme deficient being reported at the local county jail.
Following demands from employees at the Yazoo County Regional Correctional Facility during an earlier Board of Supervisors meeting, it was reported the local jail facility was already millions of dollars in the red.
As of Nov. 21, County Administrator Donna Kraft said the county jail is $4,012,279.33 in the red.
“It has been said that the jail is in the red,” McCoy said, during last week’s meeting. “I’m trying to get out of it. What can we do better to get out of that situation.”
“It has been in the red long before you got here,” replied Supervisor Willie Wright.
Supervisor Lee Moore added that the deficient is mostly based on the slow reimbursement procedure from Hancock Whitney Bank.
“It’s about reimbursement,” Moore said. “We will get the money back eventually. We just have to wait on it.”
Kraft added that the jail could possibly operate within a deficient until the county’s bond is paid off, which is scheduled to in seven years.
“We will be in the red for the next seven years,” asked Supervisor David Peyton.
“Basically, yes,” replied Kraft.
Kraft said both the state and county send payments, per housed inmates at the facility, to Hancock Whitney Bank monthly. She said those payments are then distributed three ways. First, towards the bond payment. Second, to a depreciation fund. And thirdly, into a reimbursement account.
Kraft said often the reimbursement funds to the county arrive sporadically.
“For example, in September, we were sent three months of reimbursement,” Kraft said. ‘I have actually contacted them this morning and told them that we needed more.”
Kraft said sometimes the reimbursement funds are held until a certain amount is built up.
“I have asked them to stop doing that,” Kraft said. “That is why you have a deficient. It has been $2 million dollars for the last couple of years. That deficient has doubled. Now, it is $4 million dollars.
Supervisor David Berry said many unfulfilled assurances were made to the county when it came to constructing the Yazoo County Regional Correctional Facility.
“We were told everything we needed out there would be a phone call away,” Berry said. “Contractors, electricians, even a garden…”
“There were some lies told in that chair there,” Wright replied, pointing to the chair reserved for guests. “That man promised us everything.”
“That man” was later referenced to be a correctional consultant who appeared before the county board prior to the facility’s construction.
