AUBURN — For the Androscoggin County Jail, a $5.8 million spending plan may be both too much money and not enough.

The 2012 plan preserves the 56 corrections officers who now work in the Auburn jail and keeps up with rising costs for both health care and retirement, Sheriff Guy Desjardins said Friday.

However, it fails to keep up with increasing demands on personnel. And it does not pay for the leaky roof atop the 21-year-old facility.

The proposal’s 4.7 percent hike also misses the state’s jail-spending goal, which called for an increase of 3.26 percent or less, he said.

County leaders across Maine are waiting for a sign from Gov. Paul LePage’s administration indicating whether further belt-tightening is needed.

“We don’t know yet, because they haven’t told us,” said Mark Westrum, president of the Maine Jail Administrators Association.

On March 2, Westrum plans to attend a meeting between the state Board of Corrections, which oversees the network of Maine’s 15 county jails, and Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte, who was sworn into the new job on Thursday.

“He’s going to hear from us right quick,” said Westrum, the administrator of Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset. “There’s just not money to do the job we need to do.”

Desjardins has asked the state to make an analysis of staffing levels at the Androscoggin County Jail in hopes of getting more staff to keep the place going.

On Friday, he had a near-capacity population of 170 inmates. That number didn’t include 10 people who were being boarded at the Cumberland County Jail and 35 who were being overseen in a pretrial program.

Desjardins believes his programs officer, Sgt. Eric Samson, needs help. So do the workers who process new inmates. Part of the issue is a change in workload that came with the jail’s designation as a housing facility for many of Oxford County’s arrested or convicted inmates.

“What we’ve noticed is how much busier we are in booking and receiving,” Desjardins said.

Ideally, he’d like four more corrections officers. But that will be up to the state.

In 2008, Maine’s jails were linked in a unified jail system and the Board of Corrections was formed. Budgeting for the jails was taken from the individual county commissions and budget committees and absorbed by the state.

Every jail is feeling the pinch, Westrum said.

“We’re concerned,” he said. “We have no ability to go back to the property-tax payers.”

Desjardins also worries about the signals the state might send.

His request for the coming year, $5.84 million, represents an increase of $260,000 over the 2011 budget. In 2010, the jail cost $5.14 million.

“We definitely know the money will be extremely tight,” he said. He will feel fortunate if he can maintain what he already has, he said.

“If we can keep what we have, we’ll make do, leaky roof and all,” he said.

The March 2 meeting between the Board of Corrections and Ponte is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Marquardt Building, near the Maine Department of Health and Human Services complex in Augusta.

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