PARIS – The Oxford County Jail is looking to cut $22,000 from a six-month budget, but is having trouble predicting expenditures with shifting projections.

Counties must submit budgets to the state after the implementation of a new plan, and the six-month budget bridges the gap between Oxford County’s previous calendar year budget and the state’s fiscal year.

Assistant County Administrator Judy Haas said the jail will save about $15,000 after switching to a new prescription plan for prisoners. The jail is also forgoing requests for $4,000 in capital expenditures for two new portable radios and a new work station for the control room.

Haas said three openings at the jail, for two corrections officers and an assistant cook, have been frozen. While contributing to the savings for the six-month period, it has also led to increased shifts and overtime, with additional expenses.

“We may need to look at other items and see what we can cut,” Haas told commissioners on Tuesday.

Capt. Ernest Martin, the jail administrator, said the jail may be able to save money on the costs of boarding prisoners at other jails during overcrowding. The budget currently provides for $6,000 in boarding costs.

“Most years we don’t board,” Martin said. “Odds are we won’t.”

Commissioners expressed concern over the possibility of cuts in the jail budget, coupled with other worries that the state may change the jail to a 72-hour holding facility. Commissioner Caldwell Jackson said the state may take voluntary cuts to the budget as an invitation to reduce it further.

In an earlier meeting of department heads Tuesday, Martin said Ralph Nichols, director of internal operations for the Department of Corrections, met with jail officials on Friday and expressed an interest in moving forward to have the jail be a 72-hour holding facility.

Martin said the conversion would lead to a reduction in medical, food and other costs, it would also lead to reducing the jail staff.

Sheriff Wayne Gallant said further detriments to the plan would include the loss of trustee inmates, who do maintenance work at the county buildings and elsewhere to earn time off their sentences, and increase travel expenses to the judicial system as lawyers would go to other counties to meet with prisoners.

Gallant said a 72-hour holding facility would require additional transportation staff, and Jackson suggested adding a maintenance position to make up for the loss of inmate work.

“I don’t think we should be laying down and playing dead,” Jackson said.

Martin said other staff might be able to pick up maintenance duties during slower periods if the jail converts to a holding facility. Haas said she can include the requests for staff in the event of the change, but noted that the jail budget is constantly shifting.

“I’m changing a 22-month budget every day,” she said.