The latest jail fix is likely heading over budget and work has not yet started.

The contract with Montgomery Technology Systems to replace the door-locking mechanism in the Beaufort County Detention Center was approved by the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners last July, after the decades-old locking system began to fail in January 2019. The additional cost of $700,000 for housing of inmates displaced by the work was added to the $772,065 contract, for a total of cost of just around $1.5 million.

However, approval of the plans by North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services took longer than expected, which means the county may be looking a much bigger bill for housing inmates.

“I don’t have a firm number, but it could maybe be $400,000, all said,” said Beaufort County Manager Brian Alligood. “We budgeted safekeeping for 75 inmates for six months. The challenge for us was the period for (Department of Health and Human Services) that approves the jail work. We didn’t get that back from them until it was just before Christmas. With that schedule, we are behind on our numbers. We budgeted six months in July, and we’re six months into it already, and we’ve got another five months to go after we got approval from the state.”

The detention center, located in the basement of the Beaufort County Courthouse, can currently hold a maximum of 30 inmates because several blocks had to closed due to door-locking failures; as many as 50 inmates may be housed in other facilities, some as close as Craven County, others are far away as Cabarrus County. The county pays between $45 and $65 per day to house local inmates at other facilities.

Alligood said Montgomery Technology Systems representatives have been back to reconfirm measurements since DHHS approval was given to the project and were starting the planning process.

The hope is that the project will be completed by the end of the 2019-20 fiscal year.

“Our understanding was the process with the state would move quicker,” Alligood said, saying he did not know the exact cause of the hold up. “I don’t what kind of backlog they have, because they’re responsible for every jail in North Carolina, a lot of other public facilities.”

In the meantime, the cost is adding up. Adding to the cost of housing inmates elsewhere, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office does not have enough employees to cover trips to other facilities and back in addition to its regular shifts, so deputies working overtime are being paid “time and a half.” Ongoing issues with the jail prompted county commissioners to form a jail committee in December to study options to repair or replace the circa-1967 jail.