The Wichita County Commissioners Court received a status update on jail maintenance and staffing on May 16, including upcoming kitchen work, fire marshal findings and open jail positions.

A captain in charge of facility maintenance told the court crews would begin a kitchen renovation and that a recent fire marshal inspection noted beeping batteries in HVAC battery backups and an electrical issue with the generator that had since been resolved. The captain said replacing the expiring batteries will cost about $2,100.

The captain reported pod remediation nearly complete and invited commissioners to inspect the units. He also described a jammed roof hatch with a locked middle hatch for which no key was available and a janitor-closet hatch that darkens access when descending from the roof. "We might wanna rethink that switch and put a runner-up," one commissioner said during discussion of the motion-sensor light that fails to detect people above the ceiling.

Commissioners asked that the captain add prescription billing for out-of-county inmates to the out-of-county revenue page; the captain agreed to follow up and to email the court the report. He said the U.S. Marshals contract is already included in the billing and he would confirm details with the contract vendor.

On the trustee/inmate building at the rear of the jail campus, the captain said the structure itself is complete but that Internet and camera installation remain. He said fiber will need to be pulled and cameras installed before trustee workers can occupy the building, and that the related expenses are split between two budget lines (DCF and the general fund) with cameras to be funded from line 04/2009 once costs are known.

The court also received a staffing update. The captain said there were 13 current jailer vacancies, with two new hires scheduled to begin at the end of the month and three staff members out on FMLA, workers' compensation or military leave. He reported several employees in training and that a jail academy class is scheduled to begin June 1.

Commissioners discussed overtime and supervisory staffing. The captain explained the scheduling practice: the jail maintains at least two supervisors in the building every day and typically has six supervisors per shift, which can create overlap and overtime in some supervisory and administrative roles. "We try really hard to... make sure that if people can flex off time, they flex off time when they're not jail positions to help with overtime costs," he said.

No formal vote or policy decision was recorded. The court requested the captain email the more detailed maintenance report and follow up with specific cost estimates for repairs and camera/internet work for the trustee building; the captain said he would do so.

The discussion combined operational maintenance, safety improvements and staffing concerns and ended with commissioners thanking maintenance staff for their work and asking for the requested documentation to be circulated.