GOSHEN – A larger jail population and longer inmate stays will cost the county more than expected to meet their needs.
The Elkhart County Council on Thursday approved a $415,000 appropriation from the general fund to meet the needs of inmates through the end of the year. Chief Deputy Sean Holmes of the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office said the money will cover food and medical costs as well as extraditions.
“$320,000 is for the remaining estimated monthly food bills and $95,000 is intended to support medical care this year, including some extraditions,” he said. “For food, we should be doing well because we used the numbers this year because the trend has been much, much higher this year. … Medically speaking, however, the cap is way over. We don’t have the full invoice yet, we won’t receive it until January, maybe even February. That will once again put a strain on our medical budget and we will have to come back and strengthen the limit.”
Councilman Steve Clark said the sheriff’s office is able to create a solid budget for most needs, but fuel, food and medical care are always big variables.
“Those are three that he just has no control over,” Clark said. “To his credit, he has always worked on what he thinks he will use, without breaking his budget.”
Holmes said their income projection from the Indiana Department of Corrections is just over $1 million. He said their costs were higher than that this year.
“Right now the balance is $1.5 million and we have $300,000 in invoices that we should receive this month or next month. So about $1.8 million,” Holmes said. “So we missed it by $800,000.”
He said the average daily population at the Elkhart County Jail is about 950 inmates. According to Holmes, they saw a 14.5 percent population spike between 2023 and 2024, and a 25 percent spike since 2022.
“Our average stay has increased – it doesn’t sound like much – but the average stay per inmate is 47 days, up from 40 before,” he said. “So those seven days are starting to add up.”
The number of incarcerations has increased from about 6,900 last year to a projection of 7,348 this year, Holmes said.
“So they stay longer, we get more. That is why our population has grown so much,” he said. “The number of crimes and misdemeanors has actually decreased slightly over the trend. Level 5 crimes have increased for some reason. So that’s where we’re at. That’s how we ended up where we are now.”
