DeKalb County’s Ad Hoc Jail Study Committee will make a recommendation this Wednesday to the county board for the current jail to be expanded.

The board will choose whether to move the proposal to a referendum.

Sue Leifheit, chairperson of the ad hoc committee, said the committee is proposing an expansion of the current jail as well as a renovation because the facility is 20 years old.

The reason for the expansion recommendation is overcrowding.

Leifheit said DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott brought the overcrowding issue to the board’s attention less than a year ago. She said the overcrowding wasn’t only for a day or two, but it was continuous.

Scott, also a member of the ad hoc committee, said the jail has 89 beds, of which only 79 or 80 actually can be used. He also said some prisoners have to be segregated because of mental health issues or various other reasons.

While they are not in a crisis situation yet, they are trying to avoid shipping prisoners out, Scott said.

The committee is recommending an expansion of programs to help keep people out of jail and prevent them from coming back, he said. Among these are psychological assistance programs, substance abuse programs and electronic home monitoring.

Earlier this year, the ad hoc committee brought in a team of consultants to evaluate the jail’s spacing needs. The consultants proposed other options besides expansion, which included building a new jail at a separate site and not constructing a new jail or expansion, but using the current beds and sending leftover inmates to other counties.

It also looked at prisoner profiles, arrest records and where the prisoners came from.

Based on what was found in the study, the committee decided expansion was the best option.

Sheriff Scott said the cost of expanding the jail would be $14,308,000. The annual operating cost would come out to $3.4 million. An additional $600,000 also would be needed for the program to keep residents out of prison.