FARMINGTON – If all goes well, a new air-cooling unit will be up and running Aug. 1 at the Franklin County jail, a jail official said Monday.
State Department of Corrections officials have given the county a 60-day variance from state standards to get a new unit installed to cool the air temperature in the detention center, jail Assistant Administrator Carl Stinchfield said Monday.
The massive unit that chills water in the air-conditioning system broke down June 26. The ventilation system still works by drawing air from the outside and circulating it throughout the building, he said.
He said the temperature was about the same inside as it was outside, which was about 81 degrees early Monday afternoon.
“It’s difficult but we’re making do,” Stinchfield said.
County commissioners approved spending $28,775 out of the county’s $50,000 contingency fund on July 8 to buy a new air-cooling unit and have it installed to replace the 23-year-old system that quit.
The units are specially made and the next one is not due off the manufacturing line until July 20. When it is ready, county contractor Mechanical Services Inc. will install it at the jail, Stinchfield said.
The cooling unit does not have anything to do with cold and hot running water in the jail, he said. There is cold water coming out of the tap, he added.
Two inmates have called the state Department of Corrections complaining about temperature inside the jail, Stinchfield said.
The jail is in violation of state and federal jail standards that mandate temperatures in the living spaces be maintained between 65 and 85 degrees.
Temperatures reached 93 degrees in a cell block where inmates live during the week of June 26 when the system broke down.
A state correctional official visited the jail after the first inmate complaint, Stinchfield said, and was satisfied that jail officials were doing what they could to correct the situation.
Jail officials have 60 days to remedy the situation, Stinchfield said, and he expects the unit to be installed well within that time frame.
It was estimated that a contingency plan to house inmates at other jails would cost $100 per day per inmate, and that renting a portable air-cooling unit would cost nearly $3,000 a week.
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