Inmate medical costs are a hot topic for Smith County Commissioners.
Texas requires each county to provide health care for inmates housed in county jails, and any expense for healthcare treatments is picked up by you, the taxpayer.
Smith County sent out bid packets for inmate medical services in September.
"The bid packet was out while people were responding to disasters related to Hurricane Ike. We had fewer respondents than we would expect. And we need to have a better field," said Judge Joel Baker, in reaction to the low response.
In fact, only one company bid.The company Smith County already uses.
Sheriff J.B. Smith said the burden goes to the taxpayer. "Medical costs are increasing, the company we're using at the present time has asked for 40 percent more, and when you're talking about millions of dollars, that's quite a bit for the taxpayer," Smith commented.
For fiscal year 2008, inmate medical services were budgeted at $2.3 million, and the current bid is too high to accommodate.
Smith said the overcrowding causes a problem at the jail."We have no control on the medical outside of [the] Smith County jail, talking about other counties that we have our prisoners sent to," explained Smith.
"If we can't keep that cost controlled and provide the medical needed, we got some big issues for the taxpayers," agreed Baker.
Had the new jail bond been passed, the county could have saved money on non-routine medical needs by treating them in the infirmary on site.
"Sometimes have to send prisoners from the jail to the hospital and if we had an infirmary we wouldn't have to do that," said Smith.
The county is currently asking for more bids to try to get a lower price on inmate medical services.
The bids have nothing to do with the failed jail bond.These costs would have to be in place as the new jail was being built as well.
