Franklin County will be able to continue to house inmates at the Detention Center while the grease traps for the jail kitchen are removed and replaced.

Commissioners voted Tuesday to award a contract for the job to H. E. Callahan of Auburn for a bid of $90,080. Commissioners requested there be a hard stop date for the project and a fixed contract.

Those items will be negotiated in the contract, county Administrator Amy Bernard said.

After review of the bid specifications for the project and other material, Maj. Hart Daly, jail administrator, recommended the Auburn company over E.J. Perry Construction Co. of Hallowell, which bid $79,512. The latter company is still working on a medical addition at the jail.

The time frame and flexibility to get the job done, and being able to get a mobile kitchen at the same time, were some of the reasons Daly recommended to go with the higher bid. With everything he has seen and the flexibility, he thought it would be best, he said.

Sheriff Scott Nichols Sr. has been talking about the grease traps for several years. In 2023, he told commissioners the traps are rotting and need to be replaced.

The county had a new septic system and leach field installed a few years ago. The traps are under the kitchen floor. When the new septic system was installed the grease traps were outside of the system.

About three years ago, discussion centered around having to move the inmates while the replacement work was done in order to feed them while the kitchen was out of commission.

Nichols and Sheriff Dale Lancaster of Somerset County discussed moving the inmates from Franklin County Jail to the Somerset County Jail in Madison for about a month. Corrections officers from Franklin County would have had to work at the Somerset Jail.

Given the general population at the Franklin jail, it was estimated it would cost between $90,000 and $100,000 to house and oversee the inmates at the Somerset jail for a month.

Since then, a new plan took shape. Franklin County will rent a mobile kitchen for one month for $13,545. The kitchen has all the appliances and everything needed to cook, Daly said. It will be set out in the fenced-in yard area outside of the kitchen.

If the project is not concluded in 30 days, the county would need to spend another $13,545, he said, which was the reason for setting a firm date to complete the project.

County officials are trying to find money for the project, including eyeing the interest accruing on the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funds.

Daley would like to start the project by late May or early June, when the weather is warmer.

The county jail is about 40 years old and as far as anyone remembers the traps have never been replaced.

The jail became a 72-hour holding facility for nearly six years and then returned to normal operations as a full-service jail in April 2015.

The jail has the capacity to hold 39 inmates; it exceeded that number several times last year.