Q&A on the News

Q: What are the detailed daily expenditures for the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center?

—Ed Moser, Woodstock A: The inmate housing cost per day is calculated by taking the facility’s overall budget and dividing it by the design capacity (512 inmates), then by 365 (days a year), Marianne Kelley, spokeswoman for the Cherokee County Sheriff ’s Office, told Q&A on the News.

For fiscal year 2017, it cost $70.92 per day to house each inmate in the detention center, with the bulk of those costs attributed to salaries and benefits for the center employees.

Kelley said the facility budgeted $9.3 million for employee salaries and benefits for fiscal 2017, which using the formula comes to $49.79, per person, per day.

The operating budget for the inmate housing is $3.95 million, which Kelley said comes to $21.13 per inmate, per day. This figure, added to $49.79, comes to the reported daily figure of $70.92.

Here is a breakdown, obtained from Kelley, of some of the largest costs in the facility’s daily operating budget during fiscal 2017:

Inmate medical services, budgeted at $2.04 million, equal $10.94 a day per inmate.

Food costs of $600,000 are $3.21 per day.

Electricity is budgeted at $515,266, or $2.76 per day.

Water and sewer costs are at $183,152, or 98 cents a day.

Facility repairs and maintenance are budgeted to $108,000, with 58 cents spent a day.

Travel for inmate extraditions are budgeted at $90,823, equal to 49 cents a day.