BECKLEY, W.Va. — The soaring costs of jailing defendants and inmates will continue to be a stubborn issue in 2019 for Raleigh County, and one county leader foresees a year of increasingly difficult budgetary choices, as a consequence.

Commission Pres. Dave Tolliver said the total cost for processing, housing, and feeding prisoners in Raleigh County’s jail system far exceeded the budget allocation for such expenses in 2018.

“The last four months (Aug-Nov), our jail bill has (gone) up by almost $100,000 per month. It was usually running about $120, $130, $140,000. The last four months, it’s been $212, $220,000 — in one month,” he said, attributing the bulk of the increase to the growing number of drug-related arrests in the county.

Tolliver said he has been meeting with other members of the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia to discuss the issue, which he hopes will be addressed by the state legislature in the upcoming session. He also said representatives of other southern counties share his belief that any meaningful solutions will require a change in state law.

“We’re wanting to get a bill passed (to) at least make the municipalities pay for the first night (of incarceration). And that would save us a lot of money, said Tolliver, noting that virtually all the costs following an initial arrest by local police are absorbed at the county level, as mandated by current state law. “Right now, the county has to pick up the bills. In Raleigh County, you have Lester, you have Sophia, you have Mabscott, and of course, Beckley.”

According to Tolliver, counties dealing with the increased financial burden of housing prisoners find themselves in a no-win situation, insofar as continued state funding within such a county is concerned.

“If you get behind on your jail bill — (if) you don’t pay it every month — then, you get no coal severance tax, you get no reallocated tax, you get no methane tax, you get nothing. The state basically cuts you off, and all the checks you’re supposed to get goes toward your jail bills,” he explained, adding that ongoing public infrastructure needs in the county may not receive adequate funding in 2019, as a result of the worsening budget dilemma he and the other members of the commission are faced with.

In a recent interview with MetroNews, Fayette County Sheriff Mike Fridley expressed similar concerns about jail-related costs in his county, which increased sharply in 2018, and were on a trajectory to use more than 20 percent of the general county budget, by the end of the year.