County officials are reviewing several possibilities to alleviate the county jail’s longstanding overcrowding problem.

Proposals for medical cost sharing for inmates and state funding for jail building programs were among the issues on the county board’s 2005 legislative agenda.

The jail’s average inmate population was about 79 or 80 and over functional capacity by 15 to 20 in 2004, DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said.

The overcrowding has made operating the jail more difficult, he said.

“You need space to move people around and segregate where necessary, and when you’re overfull, you can’t do that,” Scott said.

A referendum for a half-cent sales tax increase that would have added about 70 beds to the jail’s 72-bed facility failed last March.

The expansion would have been the first increment in bringing the jail, built in 1980, to an eventual capacity of 200 beds, Scott said.

The county is responsible for providing funding for inmates whose crimes do not require a prison sentence with the state department of corrections, said Ruth Anne Tobias (D-DeKalb), DeKalb County Board chair.

The jail is dealing with the overcrowding by paying Ogle County and Boone County jails to house six to 10 prisoners a day, Tobias said.

Each prisoner costs an average of $50 per day to house, which does not include additional costs such as transportation or medical care, Scott said.

Board member Jeff Metzger (R-Sandwich) said an expansion at the current DeKalb County Jail would work better than an entirely new jail, which would call for continued transportation of inmates.

“In the long run, convenience and safety are most important,” Metzger said. “I don’t think transporting other guests to [another] county is safe for anybody.”

Inmates’ medical costs were also a concern for county officials.

A large number of inmates do not have health insurance and all counties are required to cover basic health care needs for them, Tobias said.

The board considered asking cities to pay for a portion of health care costs for jailed citizens as one way to generate additional funds for adequate jail facilities, she said.

But while there have been talks of whether the state should implement a means for municipalities to share in the cost, cities have rejected the idea as being strictly a county government issue, Metzger said.

Scott said medical cost sharing was not an option and was the responsibility of the county and sheriff’s office.

A second referendum has not been ruled out as a possibility despite last year’s failure.

“I don’t think it had enough time to gain momentum,” Metzger said. “I think if we could have gotten the word out a bit more it would have had a better chance of passing.”

Scott said he wasn’t optimistic about the chances of another referendum.

“We had a lot of great organizations behind us, but we still lost the referendum by 700 votes,” Scott said.

“I think the voters spoke,” Scott said. “Whether we like the answer or not, that’s the answer we’re going to have to live with for a while.”